John Ward the director of GAMA did not have his contract renewed. GAMA runs Origins and is a trade association for game manufacturers.
I'm hoping the new director can fix the registration problem that happens every single year. I'm also hoping the new director will do their due diligence when screening speakers/guests of honor so the debacle of announcing people and retracting the honor within a day never happens again.
Some more info
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/41228/gama-board-calls-membership-meeting
and this just makes it more soap-opera'ish
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/41230/former-gama-deputy-director-retained-counsel
Is Angela John's wife, daughter, or some other connection? ??? I know next to nothing about the GAMA organization....
EDIT---- There's another Ward, Jennifer, that is the secretary of the GAMA Retail Board..... ???
Angela is John's wife
AFAIK Jennifer is not related, but I can't say for certain
At the link is a GAMA board member discussing what he sees as some of the opportunities for GAMA - which also can be read as what he sees as things GAMA is not doing now.
http://www.jefftidball.com/posts/it-is-wise
What Tidball is suggesting is that GAMA provide better service as a trade organization. What he is discussing is pretty standard stuff for trade associations. Of course, this has a lot of focus on things currently hot in the game world.
What I did not see is any discussion of how Origins itself could be better run. The registration snafus in recent years have been appalling.
Keep in mind that a handful of things that Tidal have suggested would be of great advantage to the retailers
GAMA are the Game Manufacturers Association, not a retailers association.
Tidball and I are also supposed to chat next week about some of the concerns that I have with what's going on.