The Protocol of General Assembly 2015

August 10, 2015

1. Opening of the General Assembly.

2. Election of the Chairman of the General Assembly.
Peter Jonsson was elected.

3. Election of the Secretary for the General Assembly.
Epifanov Dmitry was elected.

4. Election of three persons who should check the protocol.
Ants Soosorv, Hiroshi Okabe, Lin Huang-Yu were elected.

7. Roll call.
Country, representative:
Macau, Sun In.
Taiwan, Lin Huang-Yu.
Japan, Hiroshi Okabe.
China, Cindy.
Estonia, Ants Soosorv.
Russia, Dmitry Epifanov.
Sweden, Peter Jonsson.

9. Reports from the President, the Treasurer and the Auditor.
Reports were checked and adopted.
Ants told a couple of words about Youth Fund. It is possible to apply to Ants for some help if a young player can't afford a participation in a youth tournament.

10. Approval of the work of the Central Committee for the last two years.
CC was mostly inactive so Peter resigns from his post. Hopefully the next president will be more active.

12. Election of the Central Committee.
Current proposals:
President - Anders Henningson
Vice-Presidents: Norihiko Kawamura, Dmitry Epifanov, Na Wei
Treasurer - Stefan Karlsson
Secretary - Ants Soosorv
PR-manager - Ilya Katsev
Voted:
President - Anders Henningson
Vice-Presidents: Norihiko Kawamura, Dmitry Epifanov
Treasurer - Stefan Karlsson
Secretary - Ants Soosorv
PR-manager - Ilya Katsev

13. The places for future RIF official championships.

a) Team World Championship in Renju 2016 (Tallinn, Apr. 28.-May 4.)
b) European Championship in Renju and Gomoku 2016 (Tashkent ?, October)
c) Youth World Championship in Renju and rapid gomoku 2016 (Antalya, beginning of August)
d) World Championship in Renju and Gomoku 2017 (?)
(a) accepted, (b) discussed and preliminary accepted, (c) discussed and preliminary accepted. The place may be changed from Antalya because of high prices and hot weather in August.
There was a brief discussion that next WC should be in Asia, perhaps in Beijing.

14. Reports from the Commissions if there are any.
Correspondence commission. Epifanov: next CWC started with a delay. It would be good to change the main referee if there is anybody willing to do the job.
Youth commission. Soosorv: everything works, tournaments are being played, children grow gradually.
Sports commission. Soosorv: Aivo lost motivation.
Gomoku commission. Bogatyryov: everything works.
Finally, we have a lot of idle commissions. It's time to discuss the whole system with a new president.

15. Election of the Commissions.
Voting: shall we continue with these commissions? Voted all "yes".

16. Opening rules for TWC and YWC 2016?
Step-by-step voting.
Q1.
Are you ready to adopt a change in the Opening Rule for the main renju events, WC and TWC during this GA?
- yes JPN RUS EST SWE TWN CHN
- no
Decided: we are ready to change the opening rule.
Q2
If you are ready, when does this change may come to force?
- TWC 2016 EST RUS SWE
- WC 2017 JPN TWN CHI
- later
Decided: the decision will come to force in WC 2017.
Q3
Which Opening Rule should we choose?
(a) Soosorv or other?
- Soosorv RUS JPN EST SWE
- other TWN CHN Macau
Opinion: Sun in made a small speech that they want not to switch from Yamaguchi so quickly.
Epifanov answered that this change doesn't apply to any national tournaments and of course doesn't include novice players. It's recommended to introduce some simplier opening rules to novice players such as 5-swaps or no opening rules at all.
(b) Soosorv 8 will do?
- yes EST JPN TWN SWE
Decided: the opening rule since 2017 will be Soosorv-8.

17. "Renju World" magazine future
Ants told that RW is moving to the electronic format. This will spare some money and some effort. At the same time RW availability will grow significantly.

18. TWC proposal from Estonia: each country which won TWC at least once (namely, China, Estonia, Japan, Russia) may put 2 teams instead of 1. And +1 team for an organizing country as usual.
Voted:
- yes RUS EST JPN TWN Macau SWE CHI

19. Closing of the General Assembly.