February 6, 2013
Feb. 4 USATT Board Minutes and Tournament Sanction Changes
Late last night the minutes of the Feb. 4, 2013 board meeting went up. Part of it was the election of Mike Babuin as the new chairman of the USATT Board of Directors, and the Advisory Committee Chair Appointments (see segment below). However, the bigger news is the new sanctioning standards for USATT tournaments, from zero to 5-star. Here are the new rules. When I get a chance I'll go over them and give my own thoughts. I'll be glad to hear your own - feel free to comment.
Mike Babuin New Chairman of the USATT Board of Directors
The USATT Board chose Mike as the new Chair. I've had many discussions with Mike, and I think they've made a good choice. Here's the article, and here's the actual board minutes, both of which also discuss advisory committee chairs. Here is the list of all newly appointed or re-appointed USATT Advisory Committees chairs.
High Performance Committee - Carl Danner
Nominating and Governance Committee - Bob Fox
Ethics and Grievance Committee - Jim Coombe
Compensation Committee - Mike Babuin
Audit Committee - Peter Scudner
Athletes Advisory Council – Han Xiao
Officials and Rules Advisory Committee - Roman Tinyszin
Seniors Advisory Committee - Gregg Robertshaw
Tournaments Advisory Committee - Larry Rose
Editorial Advisory Committee - Jim McQueen
Clubs Advisory Committee - Attila Malek
Hardbat Advisory Committee - Alberto Prieto
Juniors Advisory Committee - Dennis Davis
Coaching Advisory Committee - Federico Bassetti
Marketing and Fund Raising Advisory Committee - Jim Kahler
Book Blatherings
- Tim Boggan's History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 13. It's pretty comprehensive, covering the year 1984. We got started on it late Tuesday morning. On Day One, we completed the front and back covers, the inside front cover, and the first 40 pages (through the first two chapters). Tim's on a photo binge - I've already put in 85 photos! At this rate every member of USA Table Tennis, circa 1984, will be in it. I'm doing the page layouts and much of the photo work. The majority of the photos come from Mal Anderson, who scanned all his photos, saving us a huge amount of time. We'll be working on this for the next 10-14 days. It will be on sale in a few weeks, along with the previous twelve already on sale, at TimBogganTableTennis.com.
- Homestretch on Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers. Yesterday I received the review copy. All looked well. I did make a few changes that I'd already planned, replacing two photos with two new ones, and tweaking a few pages. I've submitted the final version. If all goes well, print copies will be on sale this Friday. It's absolutely amazing how the printing industry has changed - they'll get the final version on Wednesday, and have copies on sale two days later!
- TableTennisBooks.com? I recently bought the rights to the page, along with LarryHodgesBooks.com. I plan on selling my books on the latter, but am toying with someday becoming a table tennis book dealer on the former. After all, there's nothing we like to do better at a table tennis club than to curl up under a table and read table tennis books!
- Want more books? Here's a list of all 213 books I have on table tennis. I just added Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers.
Ma Long vs. Zhang Jike
Here's video (4:40) of their match at the 2013 Chinese Team Trials.
Pool-Pong
This is what happens when you combine pool and ping-pong (39 sec).
Underwater Table Tennis
With a shark!!! But of course sharks can play table tennis. Sometimes they even infest the table.
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