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News Tips

As you have noticed, the bottom part of the right column on our website is devoted to personal news about our officials. Anything of a noteworthy nature from illnesses to awards can be printed here. The problem is that I often don't hear about these items so I can't write about them. So if you hear about something that is newsworthy, please drop me an email with the information. You can use the new link in the right column "Website News Items" which contains a link to email to me. Thanks! -Dave

News

March 3, 2010 - EFOA Golf Event
The 2010 EFOA Golf event is set for Saturday, August 14. The tournament will be held again at Green Mountain Golf Course in East Vancouver. Mark your calendars now to participate in this event. Expect more details later this spring.

March 2, 2010 - NFHS 2010 Rule Changes
The 2010 Season rule changes have been released by the NFHS. New rules for gloves will go into effect for 2012. Other equipment changes include removal of restrictions on penalty-marker colored pads or gloves; revisions in the padding rule for guards, casts and braces; and clarification of the illegal player equipment rule.

Effective with the 2010 high school football season, any player who shows signs, symptoms or behaviors associated with a concussion must be removed from the game and shall not return to play until cleared by an appropriate health-care professional. The previous rule directed officials to remove an athlete from play if "unconscious or apparently unconscious." The previous rule also allowed for return to play based on written authorization by a medical doctor. Now, officials are charged with removing ny player who shows signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion, such as loss of consciousness, headache, dizziness, confusion or balance problems In Rule 9-4-3k, the committee approved a clarification to the horse-collar rule: "Under the previous rule, if the horse-collar occurred inbounds, but the tackle was completed out of bounds, in the end zone or after a loss of player possession, a horse-collar foul could not be called as the player was no longer a runner," said Bob Colgate, NFHS assistant director and liaison to both the Football Rules Committee and the SMAC. "The wording was modified to ensure that a horse-collar foul could be called even if the runner no longer had possession of the ball or the ball became dead by rule."

In other changes, the point differential rule by state adoption was modified to allow state associations to terminate a game at any point once the point differential is reached. Previously, the end of the first half was the earliest termination of a game by rule. In Rule 3-2-2, coin toss provisions were revised to state that no more than four captains per team can be on the field of play for the coin toss. In Rule 3-7-1, the committee revised the timeframe for replacing players from "immediately" to "within three seconds."

The above was quoted from the official NFHS press release. To download the NFHS guidelines on concussions for 2009, click here.

February 28, 2010 - EFOA Policies
As you will read in the minutes of this month's board meeting, the board has been drafting and revising policies. So that you may see both the adopted and proposed policies, they have been made available in the current official's area of the web site. Please pay special attention to those marked "Proposed." These policies are published for you to review and comment on. Please read them and get your feedback to a board member. The board is planning to final adopt them at their next meeting on 3/24.

February 28, 2010 - Email Notifications on Website Content
In the future when there are significant changes in the EFOA Website content, you will receive an email reminder to visit the website and check out the new content. Some of you have asked for this as a gentle "reminder", so we are in the process of implementing it for you!

February 26, 2010 - Special Meeting Video
Some of you were not able to attend the EFOA special membership meeting on February 17th. At your request, it was video recorded and a DVD was made. If you would like a copy of the DVD, please supply a blank DVD (-R) to Dave and he will make you a copy or give him $1 and he will supply the media.

February 22, 2010 - Official's Ratings
Ratings are coming soon for those officials that worked varsity level games last year. There is great data now available (Thanks to all of you who submitted your online evaluations) and the population sample is large enough that the results should be fairly accurate.

The board is adopting the policies on how the data will be used prior to seeing and publishing the data. Otherwise, we might tend to let the results influence how we use it. By having the policies and processes determined first, we should have a fair and correct system to utilize the results.

The board will be discussing these policies at the board meeting this Sunday. (see the agenda for details on the policies.) After the tentative policies are adopted, they will be published in the meeting minutes. You will then have a chance to review and comment on them. At the March board meeting, these policies will be finally adopted and then the ratings made available to all on the website.

February 19, 2010 - Board Meeting
The next EFOA Board meeting will be at 10am on Sunday, February 28 in Dave's shop. Unfortunately several members are traveling in the coming weeks and this is the only time all are available. The agenda with attachments is available in the "current members" tab of this website.

February 18, 2010 - Draft Bylaws Document
At the special association meeting held on Wednesday, February 17, Jim Schaefer made a presentation during which he offered a draft of new bylaws for EFOA. Jim has offered to make this draft available to anyone interested in reading it.

It must be stressed that these are not in any way official nor recommended by the board. They are simply Jim's best efforts on what he would like to see. Normally we would not post personal documents like this on our website, but since this special meeting was called expressly for the purpose of this discussion, we feel that making them available to you is appropriate and worthy of an exception.

If you would like to receive a copy of this document via email, send Dave an email at raider@aceweb.com. Please put the words "draft bylaws" in the subject (lower case, no quotation marks, exactly as shown.) You should receive a return email with the file within 24 hours.

February 17, 2010 - Committees Selected
At the general membership meeting on Wednesday, February 17, a vote was held to elect two members to serve on the audit committee and four members to serve on the bylaws committee. Congratulations to Paul Levine and Jim Schaefer who were elected to serve on the audit committee. Congratulations to Jim Goss, John Boots, John Bardin, and Don Laack who were elected to the bylaws committee.

January 29, 2010 - Financial Report
The 2009 year ending financial report is now available on the website under the "current officials" tab. Please note: This report has not yet been audited. We will be looking for two volunteers from the membership to serve on the audit. It takes about 60-90 minutes to do the audit. If you are interested, let Dave know by emailing him at raider@aceweb.com.

January 29, 2010 - Website Protected Content
The "Current Officials" tab on our website now requires a login to access the content. The login is your name and last four digist of your SSN. Once properly entered, you can then view the protected content.

We will be placing the financial statements, board agendas and board minutes in this protected tab. (Note: The minutes and agendas are now here and not under the reference tab.)

January 28, 2010 - End of Year Banquet Survey
The board is looking to hear from you on what type of end of year banquet you would like to have. Some members have expressed the thought that we should do more than just our year end pizza feed. Here are some options and we would like to hear from you:

1. An adults only sit down dinner at a nice facility (e.g.: country club) for officials and spouses paid partially by EFOA and partially by the attendees with dancing.

2. A dinner for officials only at a nice facility with funny awards, drawings, etc. Paid partially by EFOA and partially by attendees.

3, The same family style event we did this year at Mt. View HS with pizza and paid all by EFOA.

You may have other ideas to consider too. John Moeller is in charge of the banquet for this year. Please email him at big_blue4911@yahoo.com and give him your thoughts on what you would like the end of year banquet to be.

January 22, 2010 - WIAA/WOA Summer Football Camp
The 2010 WIAA/WOA Summer Football Camp will be held Tuesday & Wednesday, June 22nd and 23rd at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. The cost of the camp is $125 which is refunded to you by EFOA after you attend. (You are responsible for your own travel and lodging).

We are normally allocated 5 or 6 seats in the camp. However, in recent years we have been allowed to send many more. Since his camp is a requirement for promotion to varsity level, priority is given to those intermediate officials closest to being considered for promotion.

If you are interested in attending the camp, you need to make a check out to EFOA for $125 and get it to Dave. Also, email Dave to let him know you are interested at raider@aceweb.com.

January 12, 2010 - Board Meeting Documents
To keep everyone aware of the board actions, both the agendas and minutes of meetings will be posted on the website. We hope to have the agendas posted one week prior to the meeting and the minutes posted one week after the meeting. You can find these documents on the "Reference Library" tab on the web site.

Just a reminder that board meetings are open to all to attend. All items are public except for personnel and legal related items. <[>