The USA Cricket Association (USACA) announced last Friday that its members will vote on ratifying a new constitution at a special AGM to be held on August 16 in Florida, during the scheduled USACA National Championship. This will be the first time since 2008 that changes to the constitution will be voted on. In 2013, under former USACA chief executive Darren Beazley, a governance review was carried out by TSE Consulting in 2013 which recommended a series of reforms for the organisation. Beazley toured the eight regions of USACA last October, and was joined for part of the trip by ICC global development manager Tim Anderson, in an effort to convince local and regional administrators to support and approve many of the recommendations from the TSE review.
A key recommendation from the TSE report included changing the power structure of the USACA to reduce the size of the current board, cut their power in half and give 50% of it to independent directors. Among the other recommendations were to establish term limits for board members, redefine membership categories and introduce athlete representation into the board.
However, Beazley was unable to get the recommendations ratified at the 2013 USACA AGM held in Florida last November. Instead, a governance implementation committee was established with USACA stating that changes were not expected to be reviewed and voted on by members until the summer of 2014. According to the most recent announcement made on Friday, the governance implementation committee will submit its final recommendations to the USACA board by July 4.
The USACA board will then give its final recommendations to members for review by July 16. USACA plans to hold a series of town hall meetings from July 16 to August 10 to get feedback from members regarding recommendations to be implemented before the final vote is taken at the AGM on August 16.
USACA’s release states it expects more than 80% of leagues in the country to vote on the new constitution. However, it is currently unknown how many leagues are still members of USACA with more than a dozen having left to join the rival American Cricket Federation.
The list of USACA’s member leagues has not been updated on the board’s website since 2012. USACA’s release on Friday stated that leagues will have until July 11 to fulfill membership requirements in order to be eligible to vote.

(By Peter Della Penna)