FRA 2007 Annual General Meeting - 31 August 2007
Minutes of the FRA AGM
31 August 2007
1. Presentation of Accounts
The FRA President read a summary of the accounts for the year ending 31 December 2006. It showed an overall profit of £440 to be carried over to the next year.
2. Review of the year
The FRA has not made any major rule changes during 2006, the only change being the adoption of 2.4GHz into the allowable frequency bands. Amendment to the ‘F.R.A International Build Rules & Guidelines 2007’ will take place at the next rewrite. There are a number of proposals made by Event Organisers and discussions will take place with them in due course.
3. FRA Forum
There had been concerns shown from the membership that “censorship” was being carried out on the forum. The President explained that censorship does not take place, however the forum is open to the public and is moderated and administered by Mark Lumb and Kane Aston. The rules regarding use are clearly shown and behaviour such as “slanging matches” and abuse of forum priveledges will not be tolerated. The forum itself averages 40,000 hits per month peaking at 200,000 in July 2007.
4. Member Questions
4.1 Forum Suspension
An FRA member currently on suspension from the forum asked when they would be reinstated. The President explained to the meeting that this FRA member and one other forum member were currently under suspension and the Governing Body will be discussing their fate at their next meeting in October.
4.2 TV Coverage
At the time of the meeting ‘Robot Wars TM’ series 3/4/5 & 6 was being broadcast on Challenge TV, Sci-Fi and Sky One. A US TV Executive was at the UK Championships on the first day to discuss with the President about the possibility of a new show and format. The President recounted that Mentorn who produced RW dictated the rules at the time but the FRA will protect its members’ interests and that specifications would be written by the FRA who would discuss format/rules etc with any interested party. Another matter of interest to the
members was that Mentorn have again approached the BBC.
4.3 A123 Batteries Trial
This had been discussed on the forum and the heavyweight trials with Mute and Terrorhurtz were continuing. John Reid (Terrorhurtz) explained that experiments involved balancing battery packs were still going on and report will be published with recommendations. Kan-Opener and Das Gepack have been added to the triallists The overall aim of the trials is to have commercially available packs for heavyweights and featherweights but are very expensive (comparable with good NiCads). No featherweights had been asked to take part in the trials as written rules for Lithium rechargeable batteries were already in place. Twoteams intimated that they wanted to trial A123 packs for featherweights and will email the President.
4.4 Featherweight rule change 12kg to 13.6kg
Will this take place? The Governing Body were not yet ready to decide on any change at this time. It was pointed out that there are currently differences between UK and US pneumatic rules (an extra weight allowance for gas is allowed in the UK). An informal hands-up vote was done with a 13 to 7 majority for changing the weight limit to 13.6kg (including gas). It was suggested that a full proposal be put to the entire membership and a vote take place by email.
4.5 World Championships
It was suggested that the next heavyweight world championships would be taking place in the USA (the Dutch have a suitable arena for all weapon types but is too small). Discussions had already started with David
Calkins, Commissioner of the RFL who was present at the meeting and the proposals were to be put to the RFL involving ComBots. DC also confirmed that he would negotiate with any interested TV company with
regard to getting UK robots over to the US (possible sponsorship?).