2009 breaking news archive
From NASPAWiki
Many of these archived news items originally appeared on the breaking news page. Some older items have been added after-the-fact for historical reference.
- 2009 breaking news archive
- 2010 breaking news archive
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
June 3, 2009: New Bulletin available
The newest NASPA Bulletin can be downloaded .
June 5, 2009: new committee established
A new committee, Director’s Manual Committee, has been established to update the Director’s Manual.
June 5, 2009: Reno sanctioned
The Reno tournaments starting July 1, 2009 are going to be NASPA events.
June 17, 2009: news page created
The original breaking news page was created on this day (some earlier items are included for convenience).
June 15, 2009: PayPal unavailable
Payments to NASPA can no longer be made through PayPal, as PayPal has determined that Scrabble is a form of illegal gambling. The manual payment fee for NSC registration has been waived.
June 18, 2009: trial memberships
Trial membership information for first-time tournament players added to the Tournaments page.
June 18, 2009: tournament types explained
New table on Tournaments page highlights the difference between Local Club Tournaments (LCT) and the more typical Open Rated Tournaments (ORT).
June 19, 2009: rules revision announced
John Luebkemann (chair of the Rules Committee) announces some minor changes to the Official Tournament Rules to become effective August 1, 2009.
June 22, 2009: new committee established
A new committee, NASPA-WESPA Liaison Committee, has been established to coordinate communication with WESPA.
July 2009
July 1, 2009: official NSA-NASPA transition date
On July 1, the coordination of tournaments and clubs was officially transitioned from the NSA to NASPA. All tournament participants are required to be NASPA members.
July 10, 2009: tournament results and ratings online
The new tournament data submission application is online.
We have a new tournament results page that has the official results of the first NASPA-rated tourneys (Albany, Reno, Charleston, Laguna Woods) as well as copies of NSA results for the first half of 2009.
The ratings page has been updated with a link to the current official NASPA ratings and an archive of historical monthly NSA ratings.
July 21, 2009: the first NASPA Newsletter
The first issue of NASPA Tournament SCRABBLE Newsletter is ready and available online, thanks to the efforts of Newsletter Committee and approximately 50 other volunteers.
July 31, 2009: National SCRABBLE Championship
The event registration took place today in Dayton, OH, Convention Center. Games start tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for near-realtime online coverage.
August 2009
August 3, 2009: next NSC in Dallas
The location of the next two (2010 and 2011) National SCRABBLE Championships has been announced: .
August 5, 2009: Dave Wiegand wins National SCRABBLE Championship
Dave Wiegand from Portland, OR wins the 2009 National SCRABBLE Championship in Dayton, OH and receives the $10,000 prize. The runner-up is the last year’s champion and the reigning world champion Nigel Richards from Malaysia. Dave defeated Nigel in the last two rounds today to win the tournament by a narrow margin; both players won 25 games but Dave accumulated a higher point spread (+1728 vs. +1593). This is the second championship for Dave; he also won the title in 2005.
Joel Wapnick from Montreal, QC placed third in the first division with 22 wins. Divisions two through five were won by Thomas Reinke from Middleton, WI, Dave Leonard from Buffalo, NY, Max Karten from Barrington, RI and Doug Szymkowiak from North Ridgeville, OH.
Final standings:
- .
- .
- .
- .
- .
August 7, 2009: 2010 NSC dates
The 2010 National SCRABBLE Championship in Dallas will take place on August 7–11, 2010.
August 20, 2009: WSC team substitution
John Luebkemann has withdrawn from the US team for the 2009 World SCRABBLE Championship and has been replaced by Brian Bowman.
August 22, 2009: NASPA Newsletter, issue 2
Newsletter Committee has published the second issue of NASPA Tournament SCRABBLE Newsletter.
August 23, 2009: new committee established
A new committee, Governance Committee, has been established.
September 2009
September 1, 2009: Membership Committee addition
John Robertson has joined the Membership Committee to help facilitate Canadian dollar transactions.
September 5, 2009: Manchester, CT rated
The August 22 tournament directed by David B. Carlson in Manchester, CT has been rated, and has caused at least one subsequent tournament to be re-rated. We apologize for the delay in posting these results and the inconvenience of the re-rating process.
September 14, 2009: rules clarified
Rules Committee has issued a clarification regarding a rule in Official Tournament Rules, describing what is a “reporting error” that could be corrected after result slip submission.
September 21, 2009: 2000 members
The number of NASPA members in the membership database surpassed 2000 today.
September 22, 2009: Newsletter Committee dissolved
NASPA has dissolved its Newsletter Committee, after having been unable to come to agreement concerning responsibilities.
September 24, 2009: NSC 2010 hotel reservations link posted
We have added a link from our 2010 National SCRABBLE Championship page to the Intercontinental Hotel Group reservations page for players who wish to book rooms at our group rate.
September 25, 2009: York, PA rated
The tournament held in York, PA on 2009-09-12 has finally been rated. Since all ratings are now processed in chronological order (to be precise, in order of tournament start times), some subsequently re-rated events may have different ratings. Directors are asked to submit rating data as quickly as possible to minimize the amount of re-rating that takes place.
October 2009
October 8, 2009: NASPA joins WESPA
As of today, NASPA is a Class 1 member of the World English-language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA). For more information, see the full text of the announcement.
October 11, 2009: spokespersons named
NASPA’s Executive Committee has named Robin Pollock Daniel and Matthew Hodge as official spokespersons.
October 18, 2009: member list available for directors
A new member list application allows directors (only) to get a list of all current NASPA members in a concise format, sorted alphabetically.
October 27, 2009: new policies
Steering Committee has unanimously approved two NASPA policies concerning endorsements and donations.
November 2009
November 1, 2009: noncontiguous rating data accepted
We now accept noncontiguous rating data submissions, that is, ones in which the players are not listed by division.
November 1, 2009: submit profile photos online
Effective immediately, players can submit profile photos through Member services. Profile photos are used in tournament results, by some tournament software and of course in member profiles.
November 3, 2009: membership card, online payment
Effective immediately, current members can print their own membership card, and new members can apply for and pay for membership online.
November 3, 2009: Bulletin Volume 1, Number 3 released
The new issue of the bulletin has begun its one-week members-only preview.
November 3, 2009: password requests are more secure
We have been getting one or two complaints a month from members whose passwords are getting reset by other people mistyping their NASPA IDs and clicking on the button to reset and resend a random password. We have just made the process a little more secure by requiring the person to enter your current email address when asking for the password.
November 9, 2009: clarified tournament separation guidelines
Clarified the time and distance separation guidelines for sanctioning multi-day and one-day tournaments.
November 13, 2009: Bulletin V.1, No.3 public release
The most recent issue of the NASPA Bulletin is now available for public download.
November 16, 2009: new club news page
New club news page has been created. If a player does something newsworthy at club, please follow the instructions on the club news page to submit it for posting.
November 28, 2009: updated Director's Manual
An update to the Director’s Manual has been posted. Most of the changes deal with the transition from NSA to NASPA.
November 29, 2009: Pakorn Nemitrmansuk wins World Championship
Pakorn Nemitrmansuk of Thailand has won the 2009 World SCRABBLE Championship by defeating Nigel Richards in the finals.
December 2009
December 12, 2009: Dallas Johnson named Tournament Committee cochair
Dallas Johnson has accepted the position of cochair of the NASPA Tournament Committee. This position is shared with Andy Saunders, who offered Dallas the position.
December 13, 2009: new Bulletin released
The fourth NASPA Bulletin has been released to members and is available (the public release follows after one week).
December 14, 2009: Allen Pengelly joins Rules Committee
Rules Committee announced that it had named Allen Pengelly as a new member. He replaced Robin Pollock Daniel who was named an official spokesperson for NASPA Executive Committee.