SABR BOARD OF DIRECTORS Meeting Ayres Hotel Anaheim, California February 13-14, 2004

Transcription

1 SABR BOARD OF DIRECTORS Meeting Ayres Hotel Anaheim, California February 3-4, 2004 Present: Dick Beverage, President Stew Thornley, Vice President Neal Traven, Secretary F.X. Flinn, Treasurer Dan Ginsburg, Director Rodney Johnson, Director Norman Macht, Director Andy McCue, Director John Zajc, Executive Director Guests: Sam James, Barry Mednick The President called the meeting to order at 3:0pm, Friday, February 3. The President asked for a motion to approve the revised minutes from the November Board meeting. Ginsburg offered such a motion, seconded by Flinn, which was approved, The President suggested that a motion be made to collectively approve the consent agenda, the reports previously distributed and made available for comment and discussion, unless there was consensus to remove specific reports from such consideration. After the Board decided to remove the Publications Director s and Treasurer s reports from the consent agenda, Ginsburg moved to accept the remaining consent agenda items Chapters (Thornley), Research Committees (McCue), National Convention Committee (Buege/Gibson), Fundraising Committee (Ginsburg), Audit Committee (Ginsburg), and Executive Director reports (Zajc). The motion was seconded by McCue and approved by the Board, After brief discussion of the Treasurer s report, including a small number of minor revisions, Ginsburg moved to accept the Treasurer s report. Traven seconded the motion, and the Board approved it, Discussion of the Publications Director s report centered around finalizing the roster of 2004 SABR publications. In addition to the standard The National Pastime and Baseball Research Journal, the PD proposes to produce the Fenway Project and a volume of the best of the convention publications (precise names for the last two still uncertain). Flinn moved to accept the PD s report and to thereby approve the budgets for SABR s 2004 publications incorporated into the report. After the motion was seconded by McCue, the Board approved it, The Board then discussed the proposed Letter of Agreement (LoA) for publishing the Fenway Project book. The LoA was written by

2 Rounder Books and vetted by both the Publications Director and SABR s Legal Advisor. They found the LoA to be acceptable from their respective standpoints. Johnson moved to accept the LoA and to direct the president to sign the document on behalf of SABR. the motion was seconded by Ginsburg and then approved by the Board, (Beverage in abstention to forestall potential conflict of interest). Immediately upon approval of the motion, President Beverage signed the LoA document. The Executive Director brought to the attention the Board the need for an amendment to the Bylaws to correct a clerical error in producing the final Bylaws document. After a brief discussion of the wording of the proposed amendment (see file section 9_2.doc ), McCue moved to place the proposed amendment on the next SABR ballot to be voted on by the membership. Ginsburg seconded the motion, which was approved The Internet Core Committee report was received too late to be in the consent agenda, but Board members had reviewed it prior to the meeting. A motion to accept the ICC report was offered by Ginsburg and seconded by McCue, and approved by the Board, No action was taken on two member-initiated agenda items a possible name change for SABR and giving an honorary membership to the president of the United States. McCue reported that a group of members has fulfilled the requirements for a new committee on Baseball and the Armed Forces. He offered a motion, seconded by Ginsburg, to approve creating that research committee. The proposed committee chair is Ron Henry. The motion was approved by the Board, (Traven opposed). Recalling that at its November meeting the Board had tasked him to name members of the newly-created ad hoc Organizational Development Committee, President Beverage moved to name Mark Armour, Larry Roth, and Don Zminda as committee members, Director McCue as Board representative and chair, and that Executive Director Zajc would also serve on the committee. After Traven seconded the motion, the Board approved the Organizational Development Committee s composition, (McCue in abstention to forestall the possibility of conflict of interest). Mc Cue sought clarification of the new committee s charge, and the Board determined that the Organizational Development Committee would: Make recommendations for changes required to make the organization s publications program responsive to SABR s mission going forward Build a structure for its deliberations Work to define long-term goals for SABR and, in so doing, to examine how SABR s operational approach meshes with and leads toward those goals Include the SABR public in hearings on SABR lists, face-to-face at the convention, etc. dealing with topics brought up by and to the committee A target timeline for the Organizational Development Committee is to issue interim reports leading to a major draft presented to the Board and SABR at the convention, and a final report targeted for completion by Labor Day. The goal of the committee process SABR Board of Directors, February 2004 p. 2 of 6

3 is to produce a report that can be fully examined and Board-approved by the time the Board holds its Fall meeting. The discussion naturally turned to consideration of future levels of SABR dues, since building a more robust organization will certainly require investment in materials, tools, resources, personnel. The sense of the Board was that we will raise dues in the near future, but that we need to build the case for doing so based on enhancing the value of our product for both members and the baseball world at large. McCue noted that articulating a resonant vision of building a robust and forward-thinking SABR is essential in light of what would be valid criticisms of a dues increase strong financial results in 2003, continuing problems with timeliness and scope of publications, and so forth. Flinn argued for voting on and passing an increase (effective at a future date, to be negotiated) at this time, allowing the next Board the opportunity to postpone, rescind, or reconsider if circumstances dictate. Ginsburg suggested a strategy to build support for raising dues inform members that our current financial state is largely due to one-time positives and strong donations, but maintaining such status depends more on strengthening the value of our organizational product. McCue noted that the Board postponed consideration of a dues increase at its previous meeting because it was imperative to get SABR s publications program in shape and in order and we haven t yet done so. He, therefore, cannot support an increase in dues at this time. Zajc reported that SABR has begun rebuilding its reserves, but has not yet reached the kind of solid footing needed to build new organizational capacities. He also noted that a period of positive revenues, rather than when losses begin to mount, is an opportune time to develop innovative ideas for revenue enhancement. The ED also noted that ProQuest is already seen by the membership as a definitive value-added. Flinn offered a motion to add language to the SABR Policy Manual regarding guidance on selecting sites for the national convention. In essence, the proposed revision in location planning suggests holding the meeting in the Northeast Corridor every other year, and anywhere else in the country in the alternate years. The proposal also suggested maintaining a twenty-year listing of suggested sites. This proposed revision in the Policy Manual was seconded by Johnson. After discussion of the motion, the Board voted (Flinn, Beverage, Ginsburg, and Johnson in favor; Macht, McCue, Thornley, and Traven opposed). The motion, then, was not approved by the Board. The meeting recessed at 6:55pm, Friday, and reconvened at 8:35am, Saturday. Flinn offered a motion directing the president to develop a resolution to be voted on at the Annual Business Meeting that will allow SABR to reconcile the organization s (state of Illinois) Articles of Incorporation with the SABR By-Laws. In addition, the motion requires that the membership be informed about this matter, and the necessity of a member vote at the ABM, in the SABR Bulletin with the requisite amount of public notice. McCue seconded the motion, and the Board approved it by a vote of As a followup to the above, McCue moved to authorize the president to sign an agreement with Piper Rudnick LLP for the pro bono legal work required for creating the SABR Board of Directors, February 2004 p. 3 of 6

4 resolution in full compliance with relevant laws. Ginsburg seconded the motion, and the Board passed it The president introduced an outline of general concepts for long-range planning discussions, reminding the Board that in preparing to embark on a project, the principal question to ask ourselves is what does this do to foster SABR s mission and goals? The long-range planning discussion began with consideration of articulating a publications policy and philosophy, so as to help a research director to better understand the research state of the art in order to encourage and develop researchers within SABR. The person in this role would need to be knowledgeable in many fields, or at least be able to identify those who are knowledgeable and build relationships and associations with those resources. Macht expressed his views on the way SABR operates. In his view, the organization is overly Board-dependent, which often leads to problems due to turnover and lack of institutional continuity. He suggested that much of what the Board has been doing should be handled by staff, including functions like liaison to research committees and chapters, budgeting, secretary, treasurer. Thus, we greatly need to raise staff competencies so that the office can run the organization while the Board sets policy and establishes strategy. Any dues increase, then, should go directly into finding and developing strong, active, highly competent staff in the office. With the above in mind, Macht moved to transfer the function of liaison to the research committees to the Executive Director. This change would not preclude involvement by Board members, if asked to do so by the ED. Ginsburg seconded the motion. After brief discussion, Beverage moved to table the Macht motion until the next Board meeting, noting that it may require a significant amount of discussion. The motion to table was seconded by Flinn. The motion to table Macht s motion was approved, (Macht in opposition). Macht offered a motion to remove responsibility for chairing and leading the Chapter Development Committee from the required duties of the Vice President. He noted that he was not proposing to abolish either the CDC or its activities, but only to eliminate the requirement that the Vice President lead the Committee. Thornley seconded the motion. After seconding, Thornley indicated his intent to vote against Macht s motion, based in part on the inappropriate timing of removing the core duties of an officer s position while candidates were seeking election to the office with the understanding that, if elected, they would head the Chapter Development Committee. McCue then moved to table the Macht motion, seconded by Flinn. The Board approved the motion to table, (Thornley in opposition). To prepare for further discussion of such personnel changes, the ED was asked to write a draft entry for the policy manual concerning the Chapter Development Committee and its roles. Introducing a discussion of improving the quality of SABR s research, Flinn described the database he and Publications Director Charlton have built to assign and track peer- SABR Board of Directors, February 2004 p. 4 of 6

5 review and fact-checking for articles in the journals, which sets out a step-by-step process for working in a managing editor or research director role. McCue asked for confirmation that the default expectation in SABR publications is now to display citations (as footnotes or endnotes). Traven mentioned the importance of citing previous work in the field as part of a research paper. Flinn and Traven intend to continue to dialogue about developing standards and guidelines for SABR research quality. The Board undertook consideration of a three-to-five year future for SABR. For instance, should SABR attempt to position itself as a source of baseball databases, perhaps purchasing or incorporating such databases as TBI, the Baseball Databank, or Retrosheet. Another possibility to think about would SABR have the wherewithal to bid on large-scale archival files and materials if the opportunity arose? Would the organization have the resources to develop a very rapid fundraising effort for something of that sort, one that might be orders of magnitude larger than anything SABR has done before? The Board spent much time discussing potential future staff roles, helping to refine the charge of the ad hoc Organizational Development Committee. There was considerable support for the idea of a Research Director, a more wide-ranging position than the current Publications Director role, encompassing research facilitation, broad familiarity with many baseball research fields, grantsmanship, web- and internet-savvy, and development of a comprehensive and coherent SABR research program. The person in such a position would of necessity be a full-time employee of SABR, reporting to the ED, and based at the SABR office. Recognizing that these positional characteristics may not match well with Jim Charlton s attributes, the Board tasked the Organizational Development Committee to start building a position description for Research Director while the Board continues to marshal resources to enable a new position to be sufficiently equipped, staffed, and defined. Under this conceptual framework, Charlton Associates would be a potential contractor for some aspects of the publication process (e.g. mechanical production of SABR s print products). The Board briefly touched on the issue of statistically-oriented baseball researchers who are not SABR members. It was suggested that SABR might endeavor to survey known non-members who contribute regularly to websites such as baseballprospectus.com, baseballprimer.com, and the like. Such a survey would seek information on a) what SABR doesn t offer/do that could attract them, and b) what SABR does offer/do that stops them from joining. It was suggested that the baseball statistics community might be somewhat younger than most SABR members, and the ED was tasked to investigate the median ages of SABR research committees in order to test the hypothesis. All in all, there does not appear to be any other easily-identified interest group that might be recruitable into the organization. Instead, the Board considered whether there are identifiable ways to enhance SABR s attractiveness to serious fans as a community of people sharing the same interests. Such interests must take us beyond such communications modes as , chapter meetings, or newsletters. For example, in the recent member survey, comments on what members find SABR Board of Directors, February 2004 p. 5 of 6

6 valuable in SABR varied widely. There was, however, general appreciation for the SABR Bulletin s book capsules and widespread readership of the Bulletin. The survey demonstrated no agreement on what constitutes the right number of Bulletins in a year. One suggestion that piqued some interest at the meeting was to create something on the SABR website similar to amazon.com s reader comments facility. General observations regarding the Board s long-range planning deliberations: An important part of the process of retooling SABR into a new organizational model will be to document the steps taken toward achieving our goals. In going the Research Director route, we anticipate two types of applicants young bucks or second-career professionals. This could be a dream job for the right person. President Beverage was adamant that the person must be based in the SABR office. The rest of the Board was in general agreement. The jobs of the current SABR staff will certainly undergo transformation as SABR s organizational activities develop. For example, Ryan could move into more responsible and newly-defined roles, and there would be legitimate business reasons to increase Eileen s hours as well as build up her responsibilities. Writing the job description for what is meant by Research Director will be a crucial part of this revitalization of the organization. It s essential not to overwhelm the position with such a large role that no one person can possibly fill it. We must differentiate between a job description and a task description. The Board set a bold goal: have the newly-configured organization with roles and responsibilities defined and filled in place by January This does not mean that a less-than-satisfactory candidate will be hired just to have them in place by January. In other words, we don t want to settle for someone solely because of the timetable. Under this new approach, the Board sees a SABR with more research material in the pipeline, more and better content for publications in many media, better regional/chapter structures, stronger and more focused committees, a better handle on organizational financial matters, project ideas being vetted and considered with dispatch and attention. The Board briefly planned its next meeting, which will occur between late April and the end of May. No date certain was established due to home game responsibilities of Thornley and Johnson. We will almost certainly hold it in either Anaheim or Phoenix. Macht moved to adjourn, seconded by Flinn. The Board meeting was adjourned at 3:50pm. Respectfully submitted, February 4, 2004, Neal Traven Secretary SABR Board of Directors, February 2004 p. 6 of 6