VRPA Committee Meeting: May. 23rd, 2007

 

Attendance:

 

Kyle

Dale

Eden

Angelo

 

Guest: Grant Fletcher

 

Meeting start: 7:50 pm

Location: Eden’s

 

1)      Northwest Pinball Club:  Kyle has been tossing around the idea of starting the Northwest Pinball Club.  This would entail cloning the current VRPA site and offering it to the Washington Pinball Crazies to use as their own.  Their site would be an exact mirror, but they could manage it on their own by creating their own forum sections, run their own league, etc.  There would be a universal home page, which would be the NWPC page, for the 2 groups that would have links to the 2 different groups’ sites, but would also have a small Global Forum (for all WPC and VRPA members) as well as BOTH groups’ Tournament schedules.  There may be other features in the future for the NWPC page as well.  The costs are going to be looked into, and we will see if the WPC is even interested in doing this.  It could be a really positive way to help the WPC’s have a better Forum and a stronger group, plus bring the 2 groups closer at the same time.

 

2)      VRPA Email:  A few people have mentioned difficulties in communicating through the vrpa@shaw.ca email address.  Dale is quite sure that he has been responding to all emails received, but will give a quick check of the filters to make sure nothing has been inadvertently blocked on occasion.

 

3)      Tournament Directors:  At the beginning of Tournaments, one person from each Group will be assigned as the Group Leader.  All Group Leaders will have a quick meeting with Eden before the playing starts to go over some common issues that arise during play and how to troubleshoot.  One of the easiest things to watch is playing order.  Regardless of who is playing first on a game, the playing order is always the same on each game!!

 

4)      Pinball Event for 2008:  We need to start taking steps towards making our 2008 show possible.  Before all, we really need a location.  Eden will talk to the Pink Palace in the next few weeks to see if they would be interested in being a part of this.  Dale, Kyle, and Angelo will also question some locations they have in mind.  Getting a Charity or Sponsor for the show could be a key to making things easier for us financially.  At this point, the show will be kept relatively simple… no banners, no parts vendors, possibly some shirts for sale, but certainly food and drink, and hopefully somewhere over 30 pinball machines.  Hopefully many of these games can be provided by group members.  We have the 30 if each member brings one machine, so with some people unable to bring one, and some people bringing a few games, the number should be attainable.

 

5)      VRPA Shirts:  Not too much has been done regarding shirts lately, but making some Ladies T’s in the next run will be looked into.  This is quite feasible because the images for the shirts would NOT need any resizing.  Costs for the shirts would likely be the same or at least very close to what the regular shirts cost.

 

6)      VRPA Geographic Boundaries:  Some geographical issues are still arising about where we draw the line for people who want to join the group.  For example: Henri lives just over the US border, and it is MUCH easier for him to attend events up here rather than drive all the way to Seattle, so even though he does not live in the Lower Mainland, it makes SENSE for him to be a part of this group.  At this time, it is not any kind of problem, but it is something that may have to be addressed in the future, depending on the growth of the VRPA or possibly the creation of the NWPC.

 

7)      Registering the VRPA as a Society:  Grant Fletcher joined us this evening to discuss what he had discovered while looking into this.  We will definitely be getting this done in the VERY near future.  There is a fair amount of paper work to be done for this, but it is quite important and will be completed as soon as possible.

 

A VERY Special Thanks to Grant Fletcher for looking into all this for us, and giving us such a thorough and informed presentation!!

 

8)      Constant Contact:  The service Dale uses to send out the newsletter is no longer free.  Dale will look for a new service to use as we do not want to spend any monies on this at all.

 

 

Meeting adjourned around 9:50 pm