ASPA (Vic) Makes History (From the UK)

Scrabble Wars
Jan 22, 2015 by James

Think of Scrabble and what comes to mind? Earnest intellectual types trying to out-manoeuvre each other in a game of skill and knowledge? Your least appreciated Christmas present? Boredom? Well, it may be time to think again. In Australia, a dispute about Scrabble has reached such levels of drama that it has ended up in court.
 

In a row described by the competitor's lawyer as leaving Scrabble resembling “a blood sport”, Mohammed Hegazi found himself suspended for a year by his local chapter of the Australian Scrabble Players' Association, amid accusations that he had bullied other competitors and been guilty of unprofessional conduct. Hegazi returned to competition when the year was up, but set out to prove his innocence, eventually taking the matter to a state court. After much wrangling, the Victoria State Magistrates Court ordered the Association to overturn its ruling, although Hegazi also had to pay costs of AUS$3,000.

 Long history

All of this drama is far removed from most people's idea of the popular word game. Scrabble was born of the American Depression, when unemployed architect Alfred Mosher Butts of Poughkeepsie, New York, set out to invent a board game. Butts took his task very seriously, making painstaking studies of letter frequency by analysing the text of newspapers such as the New York Times. However, his game, which was called first Lexico and then Criss Cross Words, was rejected by manufacturers.

Things changed when Butts was approached by, and began to work with, entrepreneur James Brunot, and together they refined the game and named it Scrabble. Initially, sales were sluggish but in the early fifties they exploded, and Scrabble has continued to sell well ever since. It reached the UK in 1954 and was marketed by Spears, a well-known maker of board games. Now, more than 150 million Scrabble sets have been sold in 121 countries, and even the Queen is said to be a fan.

 

Competitive

As the case of Mr Hegazi illustrates, some people take their Scrabble very seriously indeed. Tens of thousands of people play club and tournament Scrabble worldwide, and the World Scrabble Championships, which until 2013 were bi-annual, are now annual and highly popular. The UK Open, which is the largest Scrabble tournament in Europe, is held in Coventry every year.

For those who aren't into competition, there are many other ways to play Scrabble. Computerised 'opponents', similar to those used in chess, have been developed, and there are Scrabble games available for most computer and video game consoles such as Mac, PC, PlayStation, iPod, iPad, Xbox and many mobile phones. There are several sites offering Scrabble online, and Scrabble apps on social media sites such as Facebook – although some Facebook based versions have been subject to legal action. Scrabble even has its own Facebook page, which in early 2015 had more than 4 million 'likes', and there is a box of Scrabble in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Thus, it seems that, despite being more than 80 years old, Scrabble still has a place in the heart of people worldwide – and if the recent court case in Australia is anything to go by, for some people it's a very important place indeed.

 

Please Cool Down

H,

 

You are giving everybody a rope to hang you by​,  from T. Arsehole to BJ's apprentice. Even nuts such as Loony Moony or Shoe Iceberg are having a go at you.This is not the way to argue on a public forum. Even if you are absolutely correct, which you often are, you still leave yourself vulnerable to justifiable criticism. Please cool down! Even if you don't have an iota of respect for the person you are addressing, you still have to address them carefully.

 

Let M be your learning example. She could be the devil incarnate, but she stabs you with a smile.

FINALE

It took me much thinking before deciding to heed the advice of Mr. Bumble and close this chapter. I am not impressed by the overall composition of the present committee. The 2014 AGM was a farce, with much obfuscation and a phenomenon I have never seen in my decade as member of ASPA (Vic), which is the huge number of solicited proxy votes. No proxy votes were used in any previous AGM that I know of. If a member is that concerned about the affairs of the Association, why not attend meetings and participate in activities? Names of people voting by proxy were alien to most regular members, who continually supported their Association and are unluckily decreasing in numbers.

Courts are for much more serious matters. Unbecoming conduct of a committee might be important to members of an association. It is not important to the public. Matter of fact, Scrabble and scrabble players have been publicly ridiculed by comments of newspaper readers. Court time is much more valuable to be wasted on a dispute between two immature members of a committee and an aggrieved member. The use of the word “immature” in this context is not related to age. Otherwise, I would have used the word “overripe”.

An appeal against the relatively trivial cost, of what was legally considered an unnecessary hearing, would be deemed a waste of court time. The technicality was that you cannot challenge an accusation of cheating because cheating was never proven. An appeal would incur high cost to both sides. In the final analysis, both contestants would finish losing financially. So I decided not to appeal. Some members of ASPA (Vic), including a small number of Committee members, might appreciate this move and be more vigilant when selecting committee members in the future. Scrabble deserves better.

People have been bewildered by the magistrate’s decision. Some thought I lost the case. This is not true.  The court orders as delivered verbatim in upper case lettering have been forwarded to Richard Birch for publication of the relevant part in ATB.

It is absolutely necessary that committee reform takes place in the near future. Steps in this regard will take place after we get the National Championship out of the way in April 2015. Reform cannot wait for the next AGM in late November.