Virginia Division Annual Meeting and Election

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Dear Virginia Division of USA Fencing Member,

We hope that you and your family members are well. We miss seeing everyone at tournaments and clinics but understand that staying healthy during COVID-19 regardless of our current restrictions should and will remain our number one priority for our membership. When you receive this, we will all be in “Phase II”, which means that our clubs can operate indoors in a reduced capacity and we stress that you observe every guideline and MANDATE in place along the way. Only this will ensure that you, your fencer, and our community can remain healthy as we move forward.

This email serves as the announcement of the Virginia Division’s annual meeting and election on July 2nd at 7pm EST for the upcoming 2020-2021 fencing season. Historically, we’ve held our elections at the conclusion of our Division Championships’ Saturday events in May, but since we’re not holding events, we are going to do this virtually.

Annual Meeting Agenda:
Reading of minutes of previously held meetings called by the Chairman (if any)
Reports of:
Chairman
Vice-Chairman
Secretary/Treasurer
Other Divisional Officers, committee chairmen, and administrative assistants (when appropriate)
Proposed amendments to the By-Laws
Election of officers (when appropriate)
Unfinished business
New business

A meeting of the Executive Committee shall be held after each of the USA Fencing divisional meetings.

Our current Board:
Richard Weiss (Chair), Ron Thornton (Vice Chair), Ted Smith (Treasurer), Meredith Powers (Secretary), Greg Kaidanov, Damian Lehfeldt, Julia Jiang, Scott Farber, Nic Papadopoulos (All At-Large).

Julia Jiang and Nic Papadopoulos have decided not to run again and we thank them both very much for their service to the Board this past season.

Amy Lingley (Owner of LIFC and former 3X officer) and Andrew Grass (Coach at AIC, and VA Division Native) have both stepped up to become officers for 2020-2021.

The VA Division Board is very happy to have these “new” people on the Board, and requests that our membership accept the new slate as proposed in consideration of COVID-19 and the difficulties of running an election with proxy votes during a zoom meeting. However, we do not wish to prevent someone from running as it is against our by-laws. If you would like to run for VA Division Officer, please review our by-laws to understand the roles and responsibilities of being an officer at www.va-usfa.com and then send an email to rweiss1@yahoo.com, declaring your candidacy by June 25, 2020. No candidates will be allowed to run after June 25.

If an election is held, the annual meeting will be held as stated above, excluding the election. Once the meeting is completed, the Annual Meeting Zoom call will end, and those verified to vote the VA Division election will move to another Zoom call for electing our officers. USA Fencing rules apply to voting in VA Division elections, “Members 18 and over, as of February 1st of the membership year, have the right to vote…” This applies to every level of USA Fencing membership except Non-Competitive, International Competitive License and Global Limited.

Registration information for our annual meeting is listed below. We are request your full name, email address and USA Fencing Member ID for admission to the meeting. Any VA Division member is allowed to attend our Annual Meeting.

Meeting: VA Division Annual Meeting and Election
When: Jul 2, 2020 07:00 PM Eastern Time

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEpfuiuqzkiGdM9Ix2M0moT4EazjU43BnoU After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Thank you for your support of the Virginia Division and hope to see you on July 2nd. If you have any questions, please send an email to rweiss1@yahoo.com or any officer and we’ll get a response to you as quickly as we can.

Take good care,

Richard Weiss
VA Division Chair