From: "Jeff Vincent" <jvincent@acmenet.net>
To: All Northeast Region Contest Directors
Subject: Notice of new NAR Northeast Contest Board policy on the timeliness of results
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 18:17:57 -0500


To all NAR Northeast Contest Directors,


Notice of new NAR Northeast Contest Board policy on the timeliness of results


Statement:

   Effective January 01, 2003, contest results in the Northeast
Region should arrive in the hands of the Regional Chairman within
one month of the conclusion of the contest.  Results received
after that date may be accepted, but only if sufficient cause is
cited.

   This will be effective retroactively, so any results currently
over-due should be received by that date.


Implementation:

   Assuming I have not received results or heard any word from
the Contest Director three weeks after the scheduled completion
of the meet (ie: non-compliance with the 14-day limit in Rule
6.9), I will contact him (most likely by email) to remind him
to file the results (or update me if there has been any
scheduling changes -- remember that it is also the CD's
responsibility to inform the Regional Chairman of any meet
postponements, reschedulings, or cancellations).

   Aside from that single warning, it will be the Contest
Director's responsibility to file the results in a timely manner.
If results are received after the one month deadline, they may be
accepted if the reason for the lateness is sufficiently compelling
(note that the "burden of proof" is upon the CD to prove that the
late results should be accepted, not that the Regional Chairman
needs to prove that they should be rejected).


Rationale:

   The Pink Book specifies that results should be filed within
fourteen days of the completion of the meet.  It is just one of
the responsibilities to the NAR and to his competitors that a
Contest Director agrees to when he sanctions a meet.  In the past,
I've been quite liberal with the 14-day deadline.  Results have
been accepted more than six months after the meet was completed.

   However, I have grown tired of the need to remind, cajole,
harass, etc. Contest Directors to get them to send in results and
fulfill their responsibilities (I assume the same feeling is
shared by meet competitors waiting for the points they earned to
be posted -- wondering if they ever will be posted or if those CF
are lost or if they can be reflown). Also, I have found that the
lateness of results often makes it difficult or impossible to
answer specific questions about or correct errors in the results.
So we just won't do it that way anymore.

   This new deadline actually represents an approximate doubling
of the time limit specified in the Pink Book, so it should not be
a hardship (certainly not to the vast majority of NE Contest
Directors that file their results regularly and on-time).  However,
most importantly, it also signifies a much lower threshold on my
part for accepting any results submitted past deadline.