Minutes

The meeting was called to order by the President at 8:00 PM. Present were the following board members: Dick Wegman, President, Fred King, Vice President, Steve Robinson, Treasurer, Barbara Doran, Past President, Ben Laden, Weizhong Bao, Ron Zucker.

Also present were: Donna Rogall, Michael Carroad, Kathy Hilbers and Clyde Kruskal.

There was no Secretary’s report.

The President reported that the WBL had a contract for the October tournament at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds; we have a deposit reserving the Fairgrounds for the December tournament; we are “pencilled in” for the March and May tournaments.

The Treasurer reported that we have $16482.43 in the treasury. However, $3000 of that amount is part of the Regionals’ fund and not really part of the WBL treasury.

Tournaments: The approximate cost of the Fairgrounds is 4200 for 3 days, the cost of the Holiday Inn is 5400. One of our alternatives for January is to use Christ the King CC for Friday and Saturday and clubs for the teams on Sunday.

Kathy and Millard looked at the Old Blair High School (Wayne Ave and Dale Dr. Silver Spring) gymnasium. Can hold 100 tables, light is good. No food allowed. Parking may be a problem. However, there is a parking lot about a block away.

Kathy also reported that she had an offer from Greg Hamilton, Montgomery County official who remembers us from the Silver Spring and Kensington Armories. He offered us the middle school cafeteria at University Blvd and Newport Mill Rd in Kensington

The price is $20 per hour plus $140/day for a custodian. The tournament chairman and the chief director would be required to attend a class on policies and procedures.

Steve R moved that our first choice be the middle school in Kensington for Dec, Jan, Mar and April and our second choice be using the Fairgrounds for Oct, Dec, Mar, and May.

Barbara D seconded. The motion was withdrawn. (Ben L and Millard are to look at the Kensington site sometime this week and report back .)

Unit Growth: Fred King

Fred proposed the following:

1. Buying textbooks and selling them to teachers - $750 (most of this money would be recovered by textbook sales)

2. Interscholastic championships – a high school competition – $1200 for prize money, trophies and misc. expenses . $500 to the first place school, $250 to the second place school, $250 for trophies and $200 for publicity and admin. expenses.

3. Pamphlets for welcome wagons, hotel concierges, chambers of commerce, etc, advertising bridge and theWBL. Can get 2-color pamphlets at $350/thousand

Another $250-350 would be needed for design.

After some discussion a motion was accepted to provide up to $3000 in Unit growth projects. It passed unanimously. It was noted that NVBA has expressed an interest in participating in the interscholastic competition program. It was also mentioned that when District 6 turned down the request to return the National’s fund money,

Jane Sturgis has resigned from the Board. The WBL Constitution provides that the Board of Directors fill the vacancy with the new board member to serve until the next annual election. The WBL Board appointed Robert Gunnell to fill the vacancy.

Clyde Kruskal proposed that the WBL run a Trophy Pairs at one sectional. After some discussion, Barb D moved and Fred seconded the following motion: At the December Sectional, on Saturday, the WBL will hold the Washington Bridge League Trophy Pairs. It will be a two session open pairs event, qualifying and final, afternoon and evening. Concurrent with this event: in the afternoon, there will be a flighted B/C/D single session event; in the evening, there will be a single session stratified pairs open to anyone (non-qualifiers from the trophy pairs will get free entries) Passed unanimously

Clyde Kruskal proposed the the WBL Unit Game run a “weird bridge” section at one of the better attended unit games (to be determined by WBL reps to scheduling meeting on Aug 12^th). The section would be in addition to the regular unit game sections. The “weird bridge” could be a team of two pairs, a swiss pairs, Australian bridge, etc. The Unit Game committee (in consultation with Clyde) was directed to determine the type of event to be held.

Michael reported that Alan Crank has agreed to make preduplicated boards for the Unit Game, for sectionals, and for special events such as the NAOP district final. If this arrangement does not work out, Becky Shafer has volunteered to do it.

Donna reported on the survey. She has almost finished her analysis and is compiling the final results.

The President reported that, in Alexandria, the District 6 Board turned down the WBL request for some of the excess Nationals’ fund monies.

He also reported that the District 6 Board delayed the implementation of the reduction in funding of the NAOP 2^nd and 3^rd place winners until the 2004 cycle. Currently, the District pays the hotel for the 2^nd place pair and it pays the hotel and transportation of the 3^rd place pairs. (The ACBL pays hotel and trans for the 1st place pair and trans for the 2^nd place pair.) The District voted to put a cap of $200 on the 2^nd place hotel expenses and a cap of $300 on the 3^rd place expenses, effective next year. There was some discussion about the confusion at the District 6 meeting.

Steve moved and Ben seconded a motion: that, at the District 6 meeting at Hunt Valley, the WBL support a motion to reconsider the vote to delay implementation of the cap in funding the NAOP district finalists. After considerable discussion of saving money for the district as opposed to published conditions of contest which described the awards, a friendly amendment was accepted. If the vote to reconsider is successful, that the WBL representative vote to delay the implementation until the 2004 cycle, unless a compelling reason to do otherwise emerged in the discussion. Motion passed 6-1.

Fred reported on some confusion about the WBL recorder policy. The draft policy, to be voted upon at the next board meeting follows:

1. If the recorded incident is not serious, the recorder should take no action and either file the form or discard it.

2. If the incident is serious, the recorder should:

A. Inform the recorded party of the general nature of the issue.

B. Give the recorded party an opportunity to respond to the complaint

C. Keep the recorder form on file

D. Not show the recorded party the form

E. Should not disclose who submitted the form

Communications/publicity

More effort should be made to focus attention on duplicate bridge. Media include: the Gazettes, Bob Levey’s column, other bridge columns, maybe a column in the Saturday Washington Times. The President appointed Ron Zucker, Barbara Shaw, Charity Sack, and Joan Lewis to serve on a committee to accomplish some of this. Bob Levey will be invited to join the committee.

Establish a presence It was suggested that the WBL have stationery with letterhead denoting an address so that people can communicate in writing with the League. It was suggested that we rent a mailbox at “Mailboxes, etc” in lieu of renting a regular mailbox so that there is a street address rather than a post office box on our letterhead.

Membership It was suggested that our membership secretary receives information from the ACBL, e.g. transfers in and out of the unit, new members, non-renewals, which we could make use of to promote Unit growth. Jane Sturgis previously volunteered to call people who do not renew their membership in the ACBL. New members could be listed in the WBL Bulletin (like NVBA does). Someone should investigate getting this membership information electronically so that we can use it without retyping it.

Directory The President noted that we are scheduled to have a new directory in January of 2004. The consensus of the Board was that we wanted to have a new directory and that it should be developed jointly with NVBA. The subject of email addresses in the directory was discussed with no resolution. Details will be left to the committee appointed to conduct this project. Ron Zucker volunteered to be on the committee.

The President and the Board thanked Donna Rogall for hosting the meeting.

Future Board Meetings

Sep 17^th at Frances Burke’s

Oct 15^th at Michael Carroad’s

Nov 12^th at Ben Laden’s

Dec 27^th at Dick Wegman’s

The meeting was adjourned at 10:45 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Michael R. Carroad