As one of the people who did initial scouting for locations here in southern California, I really like this idea. We currently have a large enough group that many places are not fit. However, if we were looking for a place half the usual size, we would probably have 5 or 10 times the venues to choose from.

_________________
Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

Although, I can understand the allure of this idea, I'm not too sure if having them at the SAME time is a good idea. I think alternating coasts is still workable, more so than two major events such as go congress in one year. Just going by how much of an effort even one congress is per year. I also believe that separating the community, and forcing people to go to one event over another is a bad idea. It's not really what Go congress is about is it?

_________________
I know nothing.

I am surprised that this even needed to be said. KGS is totally independent of the AGA and the vast majority of players there are not AGA members (and most probably are not even in the USA). It would take a monumental task to determine which games on KGS were between two AGA members and also met other criteria for rating.

I am with Keith on this one. There is nothing wrong with AGA having a separate rating of online AGA-sanctioned games, but it should not be merged with face-to-face ratings. It should be very easy to set up a separate ratings database of online games once the criteria for inclusion are settled.



I dropped out of the AGA 18 months ago after being a member for over 30 years. I had stopped attending tournaments a long time ago and their was no longer a monthly journal to look forward to, but one of the big reasons I did so was because I felt that there was a huge disconnect between the members and the management. Twenty or more years ago Roger White was the chapter coordinator and he used to travel the country in his RV visiting as many clubs as he could. He stayed with me a couple of times and we were able to talk about how things were going. How many of the current board members get out to meet the chapters? I think that one of the essential requirements of anyone standing for election for the board is that they get out and meet their constituent chapters.

_________________
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Currently, online qualifiers are rated, right? Are people unhappy with tha situation?

I don't really see the need for or benefit of a separate online rating, unless the AGA starts letting you play online rated games any time you want to, which I don't see happening any time soon. Sure, some people might play a bit stronger or weaker online, but what you had for lunch and how much sleep you got make that much difference, too.

A blitz rating makes sense, as the AGA currently rates only slow games. But would it be worth the administrative overhead? Maybe, if it got people to join the AGA to play in official blitz tournaments...

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

No, they are not rated currently.

Oh, interesting. Man, if I spent a couple hours playing an AGA game I would want credit for it!!

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

I also like the two Congresses idea but not because travel would necessarily be cheaper. Distance is not always the primary factor in airline ticket prices. I can fly from Boston to LA cheaper than from Boston to Denver and so on. It's all about the hubs. Having Congresses in major hub cities would likely be more helpful with travel costs than anything else - this assumes that most people would fly rather than drive and it doesn't take overseas travel into account.

_________________
"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

I gave my own comments earlier - but my wife, who is neither a member of the AGA or a Go player also has one suggestion.

My wife would like to see a future Go Congress take place on a Cruise Ship so that she has reason to take the whole family.

There would be a *lot* of challenges associated with an idea like this - probably it's completely impractical. But... if it worked out somehow, the idea is really attractive. I'll at least mention the idea.

(I've told her to keep her fingers crossed for easy beach access for the 2011 so.cal congress as an alternative.)

The Japanese have done this for years. Pros are invited and tutition and sightseeing are combined. I don't know if serious tournaments are also held - maybe the Mai Tais are an impediment but, hic, who cares?

At first blush it may seem impractical for a western clientele, but parties of go players have gone on guided tours of China from Europe, so it doesn't have to be ruled out. I suppose one problem with all cruises is that, apart from the cost of the cruise, you have to get to the port as well, but there are certainly some cheap cruises in Europe.

I can't speak for the US congresses, but the European congresses are actually already pretty family oriented and often take place in sites where non-players can have lots of fun - capital cities, forests, mountains and beaches have all featured. Maybe that's why they seem to attract much bigger attendances then the US????

Bump? I don't get it. Why is this thread left to die? Can we get some of these things looked at or talked about? I thought discussions was what we wanted. Is there anyway an AGA member involved in some of these decisions possibly comment on ANY of the suggestions? As far as I've seen, we suggested, then just got nothing. I thought the whole point was so we could have some feedback back and forth. At the very least, are any of these suggestions being looked into/ brought up between the AGA representatives?

_________________
I know nothing.

I'm not really sure what you mean. Phil Waldron, Keith Arnold, and myself all responded to various items. Talk is cheap, making any of these things happen is another story all together. I also didn't see any clear consensus on ideas, just diverse opinions, and the AGA has plenty of those I can assure you ^_^ On the congress in a fixed location idea, the problem is finding anyone who is willing to do it more than once every ten years. A year or two back we tried to get people interested in the idea of having a semi permanent congress staff that would go to each location and run key aspects of the congress. Despite much discussion, only two people were willing to make a commitment to doing it every year - myself in the youth room, and Chris Garlock for the E-Journal. I personally think splitting up the congress to two separate locations would not only be a nightmare logistically, but would be a huge detriment to both locations. We are a tiny group of players nationwide, we don't have the resources, the members, or quite frankly the interest, to sustain two separate locations.

I agree with two of your points, Shimari. Talk is cheap and a single fixed location is highly problematic.
But fixing it to four locations seems plausible. Each director would run it once every four years and thus be able lock in certain basics of the Congress that wouldn't have to pursued year after year (venue, catering, transportation). When a problem arose with one of these items over the course of four years, there would be plenty of time to replace it with something comparable. Once such basics become a known quantity, you could move the registrar to single nationwide position (with tech support obviously). Once that position is standardized, the hardest job (in my opinion) in the Congress begins to look more manageable.
As it is, the Congress staff reinvents the wheel every year. Even if the city has done it ten years earlier, everything they learned is mostly irrelevant and most of their former resources are no longer options.
I can see many issues with this system as well, but it is hard to see the Congress growing (in terms of new offerings as well as attendance) without some new model. The resources of individual clubs simply don't grow as fast as the apparent demand for a robust Congress.

I like the idea of approximately 4 fixed locations.

In my line of business ( books ) the American Bookseller's Association's annual trade show usually rotates between LA, Chicago and NY. Those are major air hubs, and have lots of hotels and convention rooms. Occasionally it stays in NY for a few years in a row because they have been able to negotiate good rates by doing that.

We have lots of people in NY, LA, and Seattle. Fourth might be Chicago? Atlanta? Houston?

_________________
Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

Once every four years would be cool if we could find folks willing to do it, this too may be quite hard. You are absolutely right that the congress staff has to reinvent the wheel every year, and it is maddening. This will be my 4th year on staff, and every year I see congress directors going nuts with the stress. I still favor a core group that could manage critical congress tasks each year, but as I said we couldn't get enough people interested in volunteering for it. I wonder if four alternating teams could be a possibility? Worth asking about it, or bringing it up at the AGA Chapters meeting at congress to see if there was any interest.

One huge benefit of doing it somewhere else every year is that people always get to go to new destinations, which makes the appeal of a vacation much more enticing.

The E-Journal has a core team of people who know their jobs. The few things that change for us are the game recorders. This year we are doing prep work before the congress for our recorders so we can be more prepared on site. We also seem to retain a number of people to do the same job every year.

_________________
Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

Start the work 1 year earlier. Fix the location and lock in a site 2 years in advance. Everything else will revolve around that. The problem I hear is that we often don't have a site locked in until 6-9 months in advance. That compresses the time to plan and setup for the directors and makes it harder for attendees who may need to make travel arrangements earlier.

_________________
Michael Dobbins; Dragon: mdobbins, KGS: mgd, AGA#: 4253,
My Website

This looks like a good first step to me. I see little evidence of the AGA trying to understand why the European Congresses are much bigger. It may be that the talk is behind the scenes. It may be that no-one in the US wants a monster European-style congress - a perfectly valid stance.

But assuming growth is wanted and there are lessons in the European model, the one that I hear most often quoted is a very early announcement of a fixed location and a fixed schedule. For many people visiting a congress is a vast expense and commitment, involving families who might like to go somewhere else, work colleagues who want holidays at the same time, and bank managers whose concerns about accounts need to be assuaged. Having time to work on deals and compromises, and to save a known amount, seems to make a huge difference.

It seems doubly important in the USA where I gather (much to my surprise) that holidays from work are much, much less than Europe (I was used to six weeks a year plus umpteen national holidays; I believe the US average is about 17 days leave). In Europe, one of the compromises we can use is "let's use two weeks for the European and two weeks later in the summer for a bucket-and spade holiday for the kids". In the US it seems to be "let's use a week this year for the congress and next year we'll go where you want to go, cross my heart". A two-year pre-notification under that scenario seems downright essential.

We often have the location set two years in advance. It was agreed last year that 2011 would be in LA for example, the dates are also often set. None of the details are though, and then there are countless logistics to work out.

The European Congress is bigger and longer because Europeans get more vacation time, and they are virtually guaranteed that time in the summer. This is not the case in the US, there are no fixed vacation times, and each break from work must be timed not to conflict with other co-workers at the same job. The European model is simply not tenable in the US.

I think pretty much everyone who comes to congress is quite happy with the congress itself, it is the work burden on the organizers that we really need to improve on. Compartmentalizing tasks is helpful. As Vash3g pointed out, they get return volunteers on the E-J staff. That is because most of the jobs are smaller in scale, and they are fun and educational to do as well. Vash3g has a very hard job, and he always does it really well, same with Chris Garlock. Other difficult jobs are much harder to fill unfortunately.

I can tell you that at this point my job at congress has gotten much easier due to the times i've done it. By next year it should be pie and i'll have to do less work then this year even. Two years ago was a dog and the last year was much better.

_________________
Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

Cheaper congress entrance fee.
The pricing is ridiculously high compared to European one.

_________________
长考出臭棋.