General Meeting

1. There were 106 officials attended our first state required meeting and they either registered with the state or registered locally or both. There were quite a few who had already registered with the state on-line. The first 125 officials who registered with the state were given a pair of Northwestern striped SOCKS.

2. Because of the construction of the football stadium at South Plantation, the parking lot next to the auditorium is off limits. Therefore, starting on July 6 our football meetings will be held in the cafeteria.

3. Steve Epstein reported on the Presidents’ Meeting in Tampa on June 12.

• (1) For post-season games, the driver of the playoff crew will now get 60¢ a mile,  one way. If the crew consists of eight officials, two cars will be allowed to make the trip.

• (2) Athletic directors throughout the state are still opposed to letting Broward officials referee a 6-A or 5-A state game if an adjacent county team is involved.

• (3) FHSAA agreed to post all officials post-season playoff assignments throughout the state on their Website.

• (4) We prefer to use our own Rules Interpreter to conduct the State Rules Clinic instead of a representative from the state who is probably less knowledgeable of football rules than our interpreter.

• (5) Dade County will experiment next year with the white restraining line located two yards off the sidelines.
   

4. John Craven reported that the state is going to increase officials’ pay $3.00 this year and $3.00 again the following year. Never before have football rules books been given out before an official registered with the state, but Dr. Stewart loaded Tom Winston’s SUV with them, which made it possible to get the books in early June of this year. The state is now considering having state finals played in venues other than Gainesville.

5. Roy quoted regular season travel fee increases that other associations will be getting for the 2004 football season.

6. Bill Hanlon announced the AYFL meeting that will be held on Thursday, June 24, at the Cooper City Optimistic Building.

7. Tom Zace will be in charge of the 2004 Nominations Committee

8. Ulysses Warren volunteered to be on the Evaluations Committee.

9. Tom Winston handed out a 100-question test on Rules 1-9. Tom wants input on the types of topics to be discussed during our 2004 general meetings.

10. Billy Williams wanted to know why we don’t follow the National Federation Mechanics Book verbatim. Tommy James and Jim Mulchay responded as to why our association has adopted a different "Coin-Toss" mechanic- -we want to get ALL the crew involved in the coin-toss.

11. Tom + four other rules interpreters from around the state attended a state football exam meeting in Gainesville to purge from future tests ambiguous questions. They reviewed 800 test questions, starting in year 2000.