Belgian Go Federation

What does the Belgian Go Federation ?

The Belgian Go Federation, a non-profit organization, promotes and organizes Go activities in Belgium.

In other words, the Belgian Go Federation is the tool by which Go related activities in Belgium are organized.

The BGF offers several services to its members.
Concretely, the BGF...

• support Go activities in Belgium by providing material and assistance to clubs, also in educational institutions
• promotes Go in various publications and in festivals (initiation stands)
• organizes various competitions - generally free of charge but only for members
• organizes the interclubs tournament
• maintains the rating list (only members are published)
• organizes go lectures given by strong players
• organizes once a year a go weekend and from time to time, some other Go workshops.
• publishes more or less regularly Newsletters or the BelGo magazine, keeping you up to date with what is happening in the Belgian Go-scene
• is the contact point for every Go related activities in Belgium, also within the European Go Federation

The Belgian Go Federation purpose is to promote and develop Go in Belgium.
The Belgian Go Federation is part of the European Go Federation .

1. Board

The board is the core of the Belgian Go Federation. Board members are elected for a duration of 1 year, until the next General Assembly. It’s a volunteering job, without payment and members must respect the statuses and the internal rules.

Actual board members and contact info here.

President

Official representative of the Federation.
- Head of the meetings, ensures compliance of the statutes and rules of the Federation.
- Communicates verbally and in writing about Belgian Go Federation activities, and especially presides the annual General Assembly
- Globally, as head of the organization, mobilizes and inspires together the members to ensure success for the activities of the Belgian Go Federation.

Vice-President

Second to the president. Acts mostly as helping hand (or as backup) for the president.

Secretary

Document and organizes administratively Federation activities
- Answers requests sent to the Federation and ensures the follow-up of projects (hundreds of mails per year...)
- Writes reports of board meetings and communicate them to members
- Takes care of everything regarding administrative tasks in the BGF organization, including archiving the information

Treasurer

Manages and controls the BGF accounts and the cash flow
- Verifies and performs the bookkeeping of the membership fees collected by club presidents
- Ensure the payments needed for services provided to the BGF
- Establishes balance accounts every year and submit them for approval to the board
- Communicates with the board about the budget expenses and risks related
- Various administrative tasks related to accounting: log of all financial operations, communication with the tax administration...

Administrator

Assists the other members of the boards.
- No fixed assignment. Usually admins take up a few tasks to be distributed within the board.

2. Committees

Committees members are volunteers of the Federation who handle specialized activities.

Stock manager

Manages and stores all the material needed for the Federation tournaments (~ 50 Go sets)
- Collect and ensures the transport of material for clubs and tournaments

Gofed web site administrator

Ensures the maintenance and the 24/24 running of gofed.be site

Ratings administrator

Handles the update of the ratings and all questions related to this topic

Competition organizer

Handles competitions related matters: communication, room to find...)
The most important competitions are the Belgian Championship, the Bruxelles tournament and the Interclubs. But several other tournaments are organized every year in Belgium and around in Europe.

Communication editor

Communication is key. There are always gofed site pages to review, news to write, promotion to do on websites. translations of BGF documents to do...

Initiation specialist

Ensures promotion of Go during events, mostly festivals (Bruxelles Games Tournament, Made In Asia…).