Technical Commissioners and Umpires in Chief met on the weekend of March 10 – 11. 

This kind of meeting is held every other year. The first installment of this meeting took place in 2009 with the intention to unify approach to all aspects of organizing and running the ESF tournaments. Another benefit of these meetings comes into play when new policies are established and it is essential that all ESF staff implement these with the same emphasis. 

Gabriel Waage, ESF President, opened the meeting on Friday evening. He presented the structure of ESF technical staff, he also introduced the new positions, which were announced at the ESF Congress in Belgrade. Mike Jennings was appointed ESF Director of Competition and Technical with a direct subordination to ESF President. Also, the roles of both ESF Umpires Directors – Carolien Stadhouders and Pavel Prachar - were presented at the meeting.  

Saturday morning session was headed by the ESF Competition and Technical Director, Mike Jennings. Saturday afternoon sessions were held separately; UICs’ meeting was headed by Directors of Umpires, Carolien Stadhouders, and Pavel Prachar; Mike Jennings led the TCs’ session.  Both groups discussed all presented issues including their internal matters with the intention to come up with solutions by Sunday morning. 

The groups held their last – joint – session on Sunday morning. During this closing part, conclusions from previous sessions were presented and discussed. Also, TCs and UICs assignments for the 2017 ESF events were prepared, as well as locations for inspections were confirmed. 

These were some of the major topics discussed over the weekend: Disciplinary Code, scorers and their role, photographers beyond 1st / 3rd base, neutrality clarification of umpires, licensing procedure. 

All these important items will be presented at ESF Executive Council meeting in Rotterdam, April 1st. 

The structure of the 2017 TCs and UICs meeting seemed successful for all parties and we’re confident that we made the next step for unification and more professional running of ESF competitions. We must keep in our minds, that the ESF organizes the highest number of events every year amongst all of the other international softball confederations, and we should be the role model for others.

-Helena Novotna-