NAF Presidential Election

The NAF presidential election is currently in progress. As the information on the Q&A for the candidates can be a bit difficult to follow, I thought I would do a summary of the candidates positions as well as giving you information on what the role is as well as how and when you can vote. Please note, the Q&A is still running so there may be a few more points raised than what I have included here.

What is the role?

The NAF charter defines the role as an elected position which does the following:

-          - Directs NAF strategy and planning
- Chairs meetings
- Serves as liaison between members and officers
- Serves as liaison between outside organization and NAF
- Fulfills duties of other officers if absent from meetings or events
- Reviews regular reports from other officers and offers direction
- Sets meeting agenda items

Who is the current president?

Nate Beem, also known as Gaixo, from the United States has held the role for 10 years but has decided not to stand for re-election.

Who is standing this time?

Four candidates were nominated, seconded, and then accepted the nomination. In order of acceptance, they are:

Craig Ashby, Misterhobbs (#7218) USA
Kåre Foged, kfoged (#10691) England
Grant Hallas, grant85 (#6482) Canada
Daniel Pérez, Shirokov (#12520) Spain

However, as of yesterday kfoged has withdrawn from the election, leaving three candidates remaining.

What have they all said?

Over the past two weeks there has been a question-and-answer section on the members area allowing everyone to ask questions of the candidates. In order of nominations, I will attempt to summarise who they are and what they have said about their presidential plans. I will also link directly to their Q&A thread so that you can read for yourself I you wish. Please be aware that you will need to be logged in to the website to read them. 

One issue that comes up is the NAF website – all the candidates have said they want to improve it and will look at ways on how to do this.

Misterhobbs (7218)

Q&A thread

Field Applications Scientist Craig has run tournaments in Colorado and assisted as referee and logistical support in others. He has helped to implement a tournament every other month practice in the state, and was involved in the regional series.

He has previously attended 2 world cups and 1 Eurobowl. He started playing BloodBowl in 2000 and has been attending tournaments in America since 2005.

If elected, his first steps would be to take on information, evaluate and create a timeline. The first thing he would want to implement would be to implement a NAF rules update twice a year, compared to the annual update that is currently in place. The goal would be to improve responsiveness to Games Workshop releases and errata.

He plans to take a view on what has worked for the NAF and continue maintaining those strengths. If there are areas for improvement, he has said he will look for ideas on how to make them better, understand what they would need to be and try to execute the best plan possible.

He feels that the NAF could use additional visibility and transparency as well as ensuring good two-way communication with the membership.

His initial suggestions include building upon Regional Series improvement, additional visibility with majors, and more podcasts and videos and possibly fireside chats.

Craig feels that the NAF could open a bit more visibility to league play. Whilst he thinks there probably wouldn’t be NAF approved leagues, assisting individuals who want to start a league is something he sees that NAF being able to do. One suggestion was to be able to list league wins on a coach’s NAF profile.

In terms of tournament rankings, he would like the NAF website to separate between pre 2016, Season 1, Season 2 and any future seasons and would support a rankings reset upon each edition.

Craig would support a NAF suggested tiering system but wouldn’t make it compulsory. This would allow recommended 4 or 5-tier systems.

He would also like the Majors to be a bit more aligned in the roster construction, but allow them all to have a bit of individual flair.

Steve Campbell, also known as Kilowoggy (host of Both Down) would be his choice for Vice-President.

 

Grant85 (6482)

Q&A thread

High school special education teacher Grant has been the NAF National Coordinator for Canada since 2017, supporting tournament organisers in Ontario and across Canada.

His first tournament was pre-NAF in 1998 in Baltimore having played his brother’s first edition box set before he joined the NAF in 2006 and hosted several tournaments including the first in his area, as well as helping to support a number of new leagues.

He hopes to continue engagement, maintain stability, and create continued value for the NAF membership. He wants members to feel like they can contribute ideas rather than them coming solely from the NAF committee, and Grant suggests a membership survey. He feels there have been a lot of improvements to the NAF in the last 6 years and is interested in looking at partnerships to help progress further.

His initial focus and initiatives would not moderate in ambition, including creating a new volunteer coordinator role. If he wins, he would ask if any of the other candidates were interested in this position.

Grant has also expressed an interest in brining back a NAF shop to help raise additional funds, as well as holding a referendum on membership fees. He would look to commission NAF coach .stl files that would be free to members, as well as looking at additional badges on coach pages.

He believe that membership of the NAF means you get more than it ever expects you to give.  

Grant would like to make improvements to the website where it is feasible to do so. He doesn’t think it is worth the NAF attempting to create a product to rival commercial products such as TourPlay, however he feels that the organisation can make connections with third parties and signpost members to good resources.

He does not want the NAF to be a rules writer and feels that we should accept Games Workshops rules as written as long as they are supporting the game.

Grant is not in favour of a rankings reset with each new edition.

For vice president, he has asked outgoing president Nate Beem (Gaixo) to take up the role to help with the transition to a new president.

There are interviews with Grant on standing for president on the Get The Ref podcast and the Eye of Nuffle podcast.  

 

Shirokov (12520)

Q&A thread

Daniel has spent most of his life working as a teacher of computer science and AI in secondary schools and as a scientific researcher and lecturer.

He has been playing BloodBowl since 1994 and has been a NAF member since 2008, attending 3 world cups and 3 Eurobowl/Europen events. He has been helping to coordinate the 7 Estrellas de Madrid circuit, included in the NAF Series.

The challenges that he sees the NAF facing are growth, modernisation, youth involvement, developing synergies with online play, inclusion (specifically non-English speaking coaches but also females, as well as people of other races and cultures) and stability and independence of the ruleset.

Regarding the last point, he proposes that changes to the game (for example being able to use multiple re-rolls per turn) should be accepted or rejected by the community. He also believes that the old version of some teams could be reinstated and played alongside the new versions – in particular he mentioned the Bretonian team.

His first steps would be to meet with the committee and form a clear picture of the current situation. He would initially reinstate the Brettonian team before ensuring there are committees for rules, tournament assistance, expansion and inclusion, communication, rankings and statistics, FUMBBL and BloodBowl 3.

He would be interested in creating additional badges for accomplishments.

Daniel feels that the role of the NAF is to encourage and regulate competitive play and collect the statistics around it. He feels that non-NAF members should not be allowed to play in NAF sanctioned events.

He has made suggestions around how the ranking system could be improved including adding in a ranking of the last year’s performances following a similar system to tennis (ATP/WTA).

As vice-president, Daniel will be looking for “a person who knows the world of Blood Bowl very well and who shares the vision of the NAF and the game itself.”

How do I vote?

Firstly, you need to be a registered NAF member whose membership has not elapsed. Between 28^th January and 4^th February 2024, you can log in to the members area on the NAF website and cast your vote.  When logged in, you should see the option in the left hand menu for Presidential Election 2024. Once you click that you will be able to make your vote for any of the candidates, or even a none of the above option.