The 2014 NCGAA annual convention in New York came hot on the heels of the hugely successful national collegiate GAA championship weekend, starting within an hour of the presentation of the hurling cup to the University of Montana.

After a quick review of the year and the organization's finances, a new board was elected with Eamonn Gormley once again returned as Chair unopposed. In the NCGAA's unconventional structure there are three core members of Chair, Secretary and Treasurer, while the rest of the board officers are listed as Members at Large, and duties are assigned to them as needed according to their availability throughout the year. The NCGAA considers this necessary due to the varying workload of student board officers that can change depending on exam schedules and paper deadlines.

Indiana University's Cody Hedges was reshuffled into the Secretary position, and Cal's Richie Douglas made a comeback to the board after a year's absence, coming back on as a member at large. UConn's Elliot Whitney joined the board for the first time, also as member at large, and it was agreed that other positions would be filled by co-option as needed to ensure proper representation from around the country and for specialist positions. The Treasurer position was later taken by co-opting Purdue's Spencer Peaks to remain in the role.

In motions to adjust the by-laws, once again player eligibility rules were the main point of discussion. While the weekend's tournament saw a tightening in enforcement of rules to ensure that they are eligible, it was agreed to relax the rules regarding alumni players. If a team has less than eight players, they can use a maximum of two alumni players who were a member of the club before. The intent of this rule is to allow struggling clubs with a small number of players to stay in business and keep alumni involved, without handing an unfair advantage to clubs that have more than eight players.

The role of affiliates was also clarified, so that affiliates of a university who are unpaid volunteers recognized by the institution are still eligible to play.

A further tightening of ID handling was also agreed, so that any student ID must include an expiration date. Where it does not, supporting documentation must be produced to prove that the player is still a student at the institution. Players must also be registered and in the system by the first day of a tournament. The meeting agreed that the board would look into adopting a cloud based player registration system that would also be capable of collecting membership dues online.

While the quality of refereeing during nationals was high, it was agreed that in future tournaments referees should be briefed in advance so that a high level of discipline is maintained on the field.

The NCGAA now faces the challenge of running next year's national championships while keeping up to the high standard that has been set by the New York hosts. The board will put out a Request for Proposals for next year's hosts, bids will have to be submitted by the end of July, and a decision on next year's venue will be made by the NCGAA by the end of September. Tweet

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