Board of Directors Meeting
Attendees:
Jim Allen Don
Berman Michael Carroad Bryan Coleman Barb
Doran
Lee Jensen Kathy Kruskal Steve
Robinson Barbara Rothkin Ted Ying
The August board meeting was held at WBL
Secretary, Ted Ying’s house. Jim Allen
called the meeting to order at 7:37 PM.
Allen announced that the following board members were excused: Bob Bell
was out of town, Dave Ruderman could not make the board meeting when the date
was changed to accomodate several board members with difficulties, and Frances
Burke.
SECRETARY'S
REPORT - YING:
The minutes to the June meeting were
distributed via e-mail by Ying. As the
minutes were sent very late, hard-copies of the minutes were also available at
the meeting for review. The minutes were
approved unanimously. Allen asked that
the minutes be sent out earlier in the month to allow board members to review
tasks assigned to them. Ying replied
that he would try to send out minutes earlier, if possible.
TREASURER'S REPORT -
ROBINSON:
Robinson reported that the Unit checking
account has a balance of $11,917.58. The
WBL has $20,999.50 in funds for the regional.
Of the moneys that the unit has on hand, approximately $6400.00 is
proceeds from the STAC, for which expenses still need to be paid. Additionally, of the remaining profit, half
of that profit belongs to the NVBA unit.
Robinson reported that we still have not
written the check for the last Charity game.
Robinson will write the check to the Kensington Fire and Rescue Squad
and give it to Berman. Berman will then
take the check to the Kensington Fire Department and present the check to them
on behalf of the WBL unit.
Robinson also reported that the unit has
received from the ACBL, membership funds in the amount of $2658.57. This is broken down into $1885.02 in
membership dues (non Life Masters), $776.30 in Life Master fees, and
-$2.75 in adjustments from previous
outlays.
Robinson also reported later in the
meeting that he had received a letter from the IRS. Apparently the WBL is a 501.C.4 organization
and not a 501.C.3 organization. Robinson
said he would consult Barbara Ames, a CPA accountant, and Roger Pies, a tax
lawyer to determine what ramifications this has on WBL functions. Robinson will report on this again at the
next board meeting.
Doran moved to accept the treasurer's
report; Kruskal seconded. Motion passed
unanimously.
PRESIDENT'S REPORT - ALLEN:
Allen presented the membership report for
the past year. The WBL membership was
down; one contributing reason was that many of our new players,
Allen reported that NVBA president, Barry
Connors, passed away recently. Funeral
arrangements had already been e-mailed to the boardd.
Allen had been in touch with the
Kensington Community Center (KCC) office and had a report that they had difficulty
in making arrangements for the refinishing of the floor of the KCC. A new tentative schedule for the refinishing
of the floor was given to him: 13-16
August 1999 the floor would be sanded and the first finishing coat would be
applied, end of August, the second finishing coar would be applied, and around
7 September 1999 the third finishing coat would be applied. The KCC is still planning on rennovating the
bathrooms in October 1999.
Allen mentioned that he and
The next District 6 meeting will be at
the
The 1999 WBL round robin is almost complete. The status of the round robin has been e-mailed out to various WBL members. Anyone interested in receiving the round robin results who is currently not getting them via e-mail should contact Steve Robinson.
Robinson suggested forming a convention
committee to review allowable conventions, defense requirements, and
appropriate alert procedures for WBL events.
Berman has been appointed chair of this committee. The following people have expressed interest
in serving on this committee and will be contacted to serve on this
committee: Bob Bell, Bill Cole, Barbara
Doran, Kathy Kruskal, and Steve Robinson.
Officer reference slips were finally produced and passed around the table. Several people noticed errors that required corrections. Ying will make corrections and present updated slips by the next board meeting. Any additional corrections should be e-mailed to Ying as soon as possible.
Web statistics were presented. August statistics are currently on a par with June and April. In May we had a very high average of visits. July had a very low average as the unit game results were very sporadic during July due to the regional and NABC (where Ying was out of town). The web site is maintaining a pretty solid popularity and Ying has received quite a lot of interest from the community in our on-line weekly results.
Ying presented a draft of a Conditions of Contest (CoC) for the Fast Pairs event. One suggested amendment to the CoC was to add that the Fast Pairs event would allow no yellow book conventions. It is deemed that conventions requiring yellow book defenses are too complex for players to respond to under the Fast Pairs conditions. Any additional changes to the CoC should be e-mailed to Ying and an updated CoC will be presented at the next board meeting.
Discussion arose about the scheduling committee for the 2000 year calendar. Ying requested scheduling a stratified open pairs at least once per month with a fast pairs opposite it. By getting the game on the calendar and advertising them in advance, attendance in the game should increase to a level to maintain the game for those interested.
Coleman announced that the next Bulletin deadline would be Thursday, 9
September 1999.
The next non-Life Master sectional
tournament has been scheduled for 31 March – 2 April 2000. There is no conflict with an ACBL NABC that
weekend unlike in previous years.
Doran reported that she had attended the Education Seminar at the San Antonio NABC. Bridge programs in local schools was discussed as was a new program, EZ Bridge Lite. In general, relatively little new information for the WBL was presented. Many of the ideas presented at the NABC’s usually originate from the District 6 and WBL area.
.
Doran mentioned that there would be a report later about the Par Game.
BOARD REPORT – JENSEN
Jensen reported that Lee Ann Jensen had been contacted again regarding the Kiwanis Golf and Bridge charity event; she was not interested in running this event this year but would help put interested parties in contact with the appropriate people at the Kiwanis club. Any interested parties can contact Lee Ann and she will help them get in touch with the Kiwanis organizers. Allen said that he would try to find a chair and urged board members to help find a chair for this event as well.
Jensen reported on the regional funds. There was $3814.81 remaining in the regional account. $2000.00 of this will be retained by the WBL as the annual advance for the next regional. The remaining $1814.81 will be returned to the MABC. This is not profits of the tournaments, but money that the tournament chair and committee did not spend in the discretionary budget for the tournament. This is much higher than most tournaments return to the MABC and the tournament committee was commended for doing such an efficient job.
UNIT GAME CLUB MANAGER’S REPORT - CARROAD
Carroad reported that the local tournament chairs are discussing raising tournament session fees to $8.00 per person per session starting 1 January 2000. Jensen reported that he and Margo Hennings (NVBA tournament chair) were awaiting contacting Pat Wilson (MBA tournament chair) before confirming this with the respective boards. Jensen will report again when all local tournament chairs have discussed the matter.
Carroad suggested that we raise the unit game entry fee to $6.00. Rothkin moved and Robinson seconded a motion to raise the unit game entry fee to $6 per person effective 1 January 2000. The motion passed unanimously.
Carroad mentioned that the 12 August 1999 unit game was a local chairty game and he wondered what charity the WBL was sponsoring this time. It was reported that the game was to benefit the St. Elizabeth’s Institution bridge club. The unit would take the funds raised at the charity game and augment that amount from general funds if necessary to make a donation of $300.00 to St. Elizabeth’s. This had been decided at a previous WBL board meeting and was confirmed here.
Carroad mentioned that there was an issue with then umber of charity games that we were scheduling for the 2000 calendar year. Due to the STAC that would coincide with our annual Christmas party game in 2000, we did not need an extra local charity event; thus in theory we didn’t need to run 2 ACBL charity events as we did not have 2 local charity events to sponsor. Jensen moved and Ying seconded that in 2000, the WBL only schedule 2 charity events (one for the ACBL charity, and one for a local charity for the Annual meeting) instead
of the regular 4 charity events. Motion passed unanimously.
After observing the unit knockouts (KO’s) this year Carroad commented that the unit KO’s did not seem to be adversely affected by having the first round snowed out at the unit game. He recommended that we consider running the unit KO’s much like the round robin without hosting the first round at the unit game. The idea was well received. The issue will be delegated to the scheduling committee for consideration and action.
Carroad and Doran presented a report on the Par Game concept. Carroad had reviewed the Par Game materials from the 1986 Intercollegiate championship. He commented that the materials were well written and very interesting, but unfortunately, 12 deals took about 2.5 hours to review. He believes that this would be very difficult satisfactorily at the unit game. The board agreed to cancel the Par Game and remove it from the unit game schedule. An alternative suggestion was to help sponsor a trial Par Game at one of the local clubs (like the Washington Bridge Center) to see how well it ran in a smaller venue. The WBL could subsidize the purchase of the books (which are a bit expensive for a club to purchase) to test the concept.
BOARD REPORT – ROTHKIN
Rothkin reported that her report on the 49er NAP unit final was e-mailed. She summarized the report to the board. The report is enclosed at the end of the minutes as an addendum. Rothkin recommended to the board that every Thursday in September be an NAP club game as allowed by the conditions of contest specified by the ACBL. Additionally, Rothkin asked that the same be done in the 2000 calendar year and that these games be added to the 2000 calendar schedule.
Rothkin reported that Shafer, Bell, and Rothkin would be meeting to discuss various novice and education related issues. Among the issue was to find and train additional EZ Bridge teachers to give Shafer a break as she has been teaching the course almost continuously for several years now. The group would also discuss some new ideas for EZ Bridge.
BOARD REPORT – BERMAN
Berman mentioned that the Laurel Bridge Club would be hosting the annual Van “the Man” Charity game for the Midnight Basketball League on Saturday, 2 October 1999 at the Deerfield Run Community Center on MD-197 in Laurel. WBL board members were encouraged to attend if possible.
Berman asked if a list of NAP club qualifying games would be available for posting on the web sites (District 6 and WBL). Doran and Kruskal will work on this and will try to get this information to the web masters.
NEW BUSINESS
Allen reported that he had received a letter from a new WBL board members. She was previously a bridge bulletin editor in Bulgaria and has relocated to this area. Allen forwarded the letter to Coleman as a letter to the editor.
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, 14 September 1999, at Barbara Rothkin’s house Barbara resides at
5225 Pooks Hill Road, 1811 North, Bethesda, MD 20814 (the Promenade Apartments), 301-493-9359.
Directions:
From the East:
Take I-495 West toward Bethesda. Exit at Rockville Pike, Exit 34, Route 355, Bethesda and Rockville. Stay in the right lane and follow the signs to 355 South. You will come to a traffic light and will make a "controlled" U-turn, heading South on 355. Go back under the Beltway and turn right at the first traffic light which is Pooks Hill Road. Follow directions from * below.
From Gaithersburg:
Take the 270 spur toward Silver Spring. Just as 270 meets the Beltway, take the left exit onto 355. At the bottom of the exit ramp, turn right at the traffic light onto Pooks Hill Road, and follow the directions at the * below.
From Virginia:
Take 495 two exits past the 270 split, and get off at 355. At the bottom of the exit ramp, turn right at the traffic light onto Pooks Hill Road, and follow the directions at the * below.
From Washington:
Take Wisconsin Avenue to Pooks Hill Road (last traffic light before Beltway). Turn left onto Pooks Hill road, and follow the directions at the * below.
* Follow Pooks Hill Road around, bearing right, and pass the Marriott. Continue bearing right. There is nothing but vacant land and parking lots between the Marriott and the Promenade. Turn right through the stone columns at the Promenade. You will have to stop at the guard house and you'll tell them that you're going to Apartment 1811 North. After passing the guard house, turn right, go around to the front of the building, and park in one of the big lots on your left. The Promenade is two buildings joined by one lobby. When you go into the lobby, the North building is to your left.
The October board meeting is set for Tuesday, 12 October 1999 at Barb Doran’s home. This date will be confirmed at the next board meeting.
Allen thanked Ying for his hospitality. The meeting was adjourned at 9:37 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Ted Ying, 10
September 1999
Addendum A:
Novice 49er Report e-mailed
by Barbara Rothkin to the Board
From: BROTHKIN@aol.com
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 13:58:53 EDT
Subject: (no subject)
To: barbd@netcom.com, robinswr@erols.com, foskette@erols.com,
davidru@sysnet.net, ted.ying@gsfc.nasa.gov, dberman@clark.net,
lpj@lsr.nei.nih.gov, allenx@erols.com, edbbdp@erols.com,
bubb1es@worldnet.att.net, rbell@nsf.gov, BROTHKIN@aol.com
WBL 0 - 49er Report
September is 0 - 49er NAP month. I did several mailings regarding the 0 -
49er games, mailed posters for clubs to list their games, and spoke to a
majority of the club owners/managers encouraging them to sponsor the games.
As of this date, there are fifteen games scheduled, including all five
Thursdays at our Unit game.
On Saturday afternoon, October 9, at our WBL Sectional, we're having a "new"
(one session) 49er TROPHY CHAMPIONSHIP EVENT honoring all 0 - 49ers who
scored a 50% game or better at one of the WBL qualifying games. A flyer
listing all of the qualifying games scheduled and a separate flyer
advertising the Trophy Championship are being mailed to all the clubs in our
Unit.
The anticipated expenses for the Trophy Championship are as follows:
Two flyers $80.00 (It is my understanding
that 50% of this
amount will be reimbursed by the ACBL)
Souvenirs for all participants
at the Trophy Championship $75.00
Trophies for winners $32.00 (Price is approximate. We
may want to
consider a large, traveling trophy. However,
it would be my suggestion that we not do that
this year, but rather wait and see the
participation we get.)
Director for
Trophy Championship N/A I spoke to Millard in this regard.
Hopefully, we will have 8 - 10
tables, and he feels that an extra
Director is not necessary.
Mailing expenses/
posters $40.00 (approximate)
See you all Tuesday.