[ChuckElias]

My board has 5 meetings per year. All are mandatory. A missed meeting is a $10 fine. No exceptions. If you miss more than 2 meetings, you are placed on probationary status, which theoretically means that you can't work HS for the upcoming season (I think). The first meeting is the pre-season interpretation meeting right before Thanksgiving, where the rule changes are presented. If you don't attend the meeting (or another sanctioned board's interp meeting), then you can't work HS games that season. Then we have 2 meetings in December (schedules are distributed); one in January; and one in February. There is also an end-of-year banquet which is not mandatory; however, the cost of the banquet is included in our annual dues.

The meetings themselves are fairly structured. Most of the meeting is taken up with rules review/discussion, and sometimes we get "reminded" to use proper mechanics if our observers have noticed too many lazy or non-approved mechanics slipping into our games. We have a very good board interpreter, and he's very thorough. I would say that most of the rules review is geared toward the newer guys, so we tend to hear similar things each year, but it's still helpful sometimes.

After the interpreter is done, board business is discussed, if there is any. That's generally the time that by-law changes are brought up, or changes in the dues, etc. The meetings usually last an hour to 75 minutes. Not bad for a Sunday morning.

Chuck