Report on the 18th General Assembly of the World Puzzle Federation
Senec, Slovakia, October 20-21, 2016 by Hana Koudelková
GA meeting part 1 (Thursday)
Opening
The meeting was called to order on Thursday, October 20, at 9.30 a.m. by the WPF chairman Will Shortz. The second session was held on Thursday evening and was open to all World Sudoku/Puzzle Championship participants. The voting session was held on Friday.
The Board members present were: Will Shortz (Chairman, USA), Hans Eendebak (Treasurer, NED), Gareth Moore (GBR), Vítězslav Koudelka (CZE), and Hana Koudelková (Director, CZE). The countries present on Thursday were China, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Slovakia, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA.
Reports
The General Assembly Agenda 2016 was approved unanimously as well as the minutes of the 2015 GA as printed in the WPF Newsletter 21. The financial reports, previously approved by the WPF Treasurer, were presented by Hana. Apart from all the incomes mentioned in the report, Hana informed the assembly about money received one day ago from Deyan Razsadov (BLG). The amount was 4 200 EUR and the WPF will decide if there will be any special project the money will be used for. After approval of the reports a decision was made on which points from the agenda would be saved for the open session in the evening.
Membership fee
It was approved to continue with the 400 EUR membership fee for the next year. There was a discussion about bank fees, whether they should be paid by the member or WPF, as it can sometimes cause a difference of 15-20 EUR. There was a vote and 7 members were in favour of having the members pay the fee and 5 were against. It was approved that all members would be asked to pay the bank fees so that the full amount of 400 EUR is received.
Logo and copyright issues
All the scenarios were discussed and it was agreed that all the information will be shared with members and all new members will be informed about these rules.
WPF SUDOKU/PUZZLE GP Puzzles
- the WPF is the owner of the GP puzzle copyrights (since 2015) and pays 100 EUR/puzzle set to each author (licensing agreement needs to be created)
- puzzles are available online on the WPF site for free
Members´ rights:
1. print puzzles in the member´s home country
2. publish puzzles online for members only
WSC/WPC Puzzles
- the WPF owns the rights - licensing agreement needs to be created
- the WPF is offering puzzles to be downloaded from the website to all non-members - the fee is 20 EUR/puzzle set. 50% of the income goes to the host of the championship and WPF receives the other 50% .
Members´rights:
1. Printing (puzzle author needs to be credited)
1.1.Right to publish the WPF puzzles in the members´ home country - puzzle author needs to be credited
1.2. If selling the publications outside the home country, a written approval needs to be received from the country where the publications are sold. If approval is not received, the member cannot sell the puzzles there.
2. Online sale (amazon.com, etc.)
3. PDF files with puzzles
3.1. PDF files can be distributed for free to all members
3.2. PDF files cannot be given for free to non-members and cannot be sold to anybody by members
National qualifications
The puzzle authors own the rights, not the WPF. Every publisher needs to ask for approval to publish the puzzles and credit the author.
Open GA meeting part 2 (Thursday evening)
Candidates for the WPF Board
This year there were five candidates for the two open positions on the Board. The candidates were Zhang Haijun (CHN), György István (HUN), Prasanna Seshadri (IND), Will Shortz (USA), Frédéric Stalder (SUI). All the candidates gave a short presentation (Markus Roth had a presentation on behalf of Frédéric Stalder who was not present) that included their experience, current job, and future plans within the WPF.
WSC/WPC 2017 India
The presentation was given by Amit Sowani and Prasanna Seshadri. The championships will be held on October 15-22, 2017, in Hotel Clark’s Exotica, in Bangalore. The event is scheduled to align with Diwali – one of the major Indian festivals, so it´s recommended to book flights and plan the trip well in advance. The authors and organisers are Amit Sowani, Deb Mohanty, Prasanna Seshadri, Rakesh Rai, Rohan Rao and Sumit Bothra. The official participation fee for the combined championships will be 500/550 EUR.
Candidate for hosting WSC/WPC 2018 – San Marino
There is one candidate for hosting the WSC/WPC 2018 – San Marino. Stefano Forcolin presented a potential site for the venue – San Marino. As there were still some uncertain points, a deadline on February 15, 2017 was set to present the final candidacy. The main issues were high costs and associated shortening of the event by one day, limited number of possible accommodation options,the size of the competition hall, and transport from the airport.
Voting Session (Friday)
The Board members present were: Will Shortz (Chairman, USA), Hans Eendebak (Treasurer, NED), Vítězslav Koudelka (CZE), György István (HUN), Gareth Moore (UK), and Hana Koudelková (Director, CZE). The countries present were: Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherands, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland (voting for Poland), Turkey, UK, USA.
Election of the board members
In the first ballot, Prasanna Seshadri and Will Shortz got the most votes and out of these two Prasanna was elected as the first new board member.
The remaining four candidates advanced to the second ballot. In this round, György and Will got most of the votes and later Will was elected as the second new board member.
Hence the new board members are Prasanna Seshadri and Will Shortz.
Vita thanked all the candidates and expressed confidence in future cooperation.
Closing
Will thanked Matus Demiger and Zuzana Hromcová for hosting the WSC/WPC 2016, Hana Koudelková for several years as the WPF Director, and Wei-Hwa Huang and Tom Collyer for running the WPF Sudoku/Puzzle GP.
There being no further business, the meeting was closed on Friday October 21.
Board Meeting (Wednesday)
The meeting was called to order on Wednesday at 9 p.m. and the Board members present were: Will Shortz (Chairman, USA), Hans Eendebak (NED), Chen Cen (CHN), Vítězslav Koudelka (CZE), György István (HUN), Gareth Moore (UK), and Hana Koudelková (Director, CZE).
The Board went through the GA agenda and discussed all the topics.
There was a discussion about the number of board members for the future. The board agreed the number shouldn´t be higher. György suggested to have two leaderships – active board and presidentary (representative) board. Vita, Hans and Will were against. There was no vote about it.
Board´s activity during the year
György suggested to have all the details about the WPF board´s decisions over the year available on the WPF web page. Vítězslav added that there should be a page dedicated to the board´s activity over the year in the Newsletter, too.
System of voting
The Board discussed the voting of the Board members and agreed that there would be two separate elections for two positions. The system of voting will be followed as described in the WPF Statutes.
The Board also confirmed that each presentation of the candidates can last 2 minutes and the presentation will be done during the Open GA Meeting.
Board Meeting (Friday)
The Board Meeting took place on Friday evening. Prasanna was welcomed as a new Board member and the system of Board´s job over the year was explained.
The first point was to select the officers – the chairman, treasurer and the competition director.
Will Shortz was re-elected as the WPF chairman, Hans Eendebak as treasurer and Gareth Moore as the Competition director for 2017. Prasanna proposed some new ideas in terms of communication with players and authors and about puzzles in general and he was given a new title of Puzzle Communications.
