• We found that the economic slowdown had consequences to our organization that we might not have so easily anticipated. We found this to be especially true in the area of "Marketing." Neither the newspaper nor any of the TV stations was interested in producing additional content for their medium in 2008. As a result, we have several issues of rules coverage for the average fan sitting on the shelf in both scripts for video recording and printing in the paper. We'll continue to try to drive this content out to the public in 2009. But at this point, its future is far from certain.

• We further decreased the number of pre-season and regular season meetings from 13 to 12 by eliminating one more late-season meeting. This allowed us to return more time to the members for use in their personal lives without compromising on the content of our training sessions. Much of this was made possible by use of TheArbiter for use in booking. The time we used to spend on booking-related activities in general membership meetings was put to good use throughout the season in covering more training topics and in review of games in the previous week.

• We began using TheArbiter for making all regular season game assignments, both Varsity and Sub-Varsity. While we had some "interesting" times in the early season while everyone settled into the use of this booking package, by season's end we were firing on all cylinders. The use of this package made for more accurate and timely assignments as well as record-keeping. We're very much looking forward to building on the successful use of TheArbiter in 2008 for our 2009 season.

• We had a remarkable year in 2008 on the recruiting front. Our numbers were up on both transfers in from other associations as well as from entirely new members. The numbers were nice, but what was most remarkable was the quality of the folks we attracted. We were very well pleased at how quickly our newest officials, especially, took to the avocation and became in integral part of our delivery of service. We should only hope to do so well in future years.

• We altered our crew assignments for 2008 in the regular season to mix up the crews more than in the recent past. This allowed us to continue to work younger officials into the Friday night mix faster than is generally done in most other associations. And it also helped us work on standardization issues better than the semi-fixed crews we'd used in the recent past. As always this is a delicate balancing act. We must both train officials as quickly as we can and provide the best possible service to the teams for whom we officiate. So far, so good.

• We continued to work back into more local schools than had been the case until 2007. For example, we wound up with 8 total regular season games in our most local region, 8-AAAAA, and we were the regular season association serving eventual Class A champion, Wesleyan. At the same time we did continue to serve several schools on a one-game-only basis as part of GHSA's schedule-balancing program. We'll continue to offer to help GHSA in this way in 2009, and we're hopeful that we can continue to serve as many local schools as possible during the regular season.

• Varsity: We did 80 regular season GHSA games over the course of an 11-week-long period; all used 6-man on-field crews plus an ECO. This was nine less regular season game than we worked in 2007. In DeKalb County, we also provided chain crews for each Varsity game; however, we only had one DeKalb school's contract (Lithonia). For the 11 weeks of the regular season, we averaged doing 7.27 GHSA games per week. Included in our schedule were 2 Thursday and 6 Saturday contests; these totaled 10% of our Varsity assignments. This was up from 6.7% non-Friday games in 2007, but still lower than the 12% non-Friday game total of 2006. With the addition of more schools each year along with fewer total officials and fields per teams playing football, more non-Friday games remain in our long-term future.

• Sub-Varsity: We worked a total of 137 games (7 more than in 2007), all of which we successfully covered with 4-man crews. This was done over the course of a 9-week-long season. We had a strong season here with very few problems due to weather and the rescheduling that flows from major weather problems. We only had 3 games cancelled/rescheduled after the games had been entered into TheArbiter. 2008 continued the recent really good cooperation we had from the membership in covering this most difficult aspect of our schedule.

• First Round - 4 games: AAAAA ML King (8-2) vs Tift County (7-3) - Reed; AAAAA Newnan (4-1) vs Johnson, Savannah (3-4) - Camp; AAAA Sprayberry (7-1) vs Cedar Shoals (8-4) - Tarquinio; A Lincoln County (7-1) vs Social Circle (8-4) - Rice.
• This compared to 6 games in the first round in 2006 and 5 games in each of the years: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 & 2007.

• Second Round - 2 games: AAAA North Clayton vs Statesboro - Reed; AAA Ridgeland vs Flowery Branch - Tarquinio.
• This compared to 3 games in 2006 & 2007 and 2 games in the second round in each of the years: 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005.

• Third Round - 1 game: AA Pepperell vs Fitzgerald - Reed
• This compared to 1 game in the third round in 2006 & 2007 and 2002 & 2003 and no games in the years 2004 & 2005.

• We handled 3 LESS total playoff games in 2008 compared to 2007. This change in playoff assignments was definitely a change in the wrong direction. Basically, this change can be attributed to a single factor: Failure of people to attend the required once-every-two-years GHSA Camp. This severely limited the number of people who were "paper" qualified to serve on a playoff crew. We had lots of good people sit home because they failed to get themselves paper qualified.

• Follow this link to view a gallery of playoff crew pictures: 2008 Playoff Pictures

• We had a total membership of 83 officials as of 11/20/08. This is almost exactly average size for the 22 GHSA-sanctioned local officiating associations but represents a slight decrease (4.6%) in our membership compared to 2007.

• First Vice President: Brian Gourdine
  VP, Training: Joe Rice
  VP, Marketing: Tony Cordaro
• In addition, Rick Crowe relinquished his position as Recording Secretary to Tim Clark for the balance of that 2-year term that started in 2008.
   

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