Minutes

WBL Board Meeting

March 19, 2008

The meeting was held at Don Berman’s home.

In attendance: Don Berman, Carole Banks, Ellen Cherniavsky, Jim Geist, Fred King, Clyde Kruskal, Linda Marshall, Steve Robinson; Ellen Rosenthal, non-voting members Donna Rogall and Nadine Wood.

President King called the meeting to order at 7:58 PM.

Secretary’s Report

The Board approved the minutes, without objection.

Treasurer’s Report

Steve Robinson reported a balance of $17,495.16 in the WBL’s checking account. The Board approved the Treasurer’s report, without objection.

Sunday Bridge Fiesta

Fred King reported that Mark Lavine has proposed handling the novice game that the WBL previously sponsored on Sunday. He wants to run it concurrently with an open game, but he wants to run it on Saturday, not Sunday. He proposes to use his own sanction, not the WBL sanction, and is not asking for any financial support or guarantee from the WBL. He does ask for advertising support from the WBL. However, the WBL offers advertising support to all WBL clubs anyway.

Don Berman noted that when the game was run by the Forsythes under the WBL sanction, masterpoints earned counted toward the WBL annual trophy races. Fred King replied that it would not count under Mark Lavine’s proposal, since it would no longer be a WBL-sponsored event, but would be considered equivalent to all other club games within the WBL territory.

Fred King recommended that the WBL accept Mark Lavine’s proposal. Although it would be better to have a novice game in Sunday in the District, nobody has come forward with a workable proposal to do that. Ellen Cherniavsky suggested that if the opportunity arises to start a Sunday game in the District, the Board could always consider the proposal at that time.

March Sectional

Nadine Wood reported that she has lined up David to help her with shopping, but she needs assistance throughout the tournament. Don Berman volunteered to assist Friday morning, assuming that his partner does not cancel on him for a scheduled game that morning. Richard Ferrin agreed to assist Friday night after the game. Carole Banks and Jim Geist volunteered to assist Saturday morning at 9:00 AM. Fred King agreed to help on Sunday morning. Also, Donna Rogall will be unavailable to take pictures of winners on Saturday, and Ellen Rosenthal and/or Jim Geist will take the pictures in Donna’s place.

August Sectional

Nadine Wood passed out copies of the flyer for the August Sectional.

Bulletin

The Board agreed to drop the Fidelity & Trust name from the Unit Round Robin, since Michael Chelst still has not paid for sponsoring last year’s event. Donna Rogall reminded Board members of the need for updated bios for the upcoming annual meeting.

Bridge at Schools

Ellen Rosenthal reported that St. Andrews in Potomac has its own program with 20 students, using Steve Forsythe’s materials. She would like to have a Spring Youth Tournament on May 17. Mark Lavine is looking for space at St. James’ Church in Potomac.

The Board discussed the idea of the WBL paying to send a pair to the Youth Nationals in Atlanta this Summer. Ellen Rosenthal noted Mark Rosen’s concern that arranging a trip such as this requires other things, including arranging for parental consent, plus providing chaperones. She also expressed concern that the kids make their summer plans with the families many months in advance, so it will be too late to wait until the May 17 tournament to select winners to send to Atlanta. Nadine Wood replied that that the WBL should encourage as many kids as possible now to go to the Atlanta tournament, since there is no prequalification necessary. However, WBL would subsidize just one pair, based on the May 17 results, and the others could still go, albeit without a subsidy.

Fred King asked what should be subsidized. Nadine replied that the subsidy should cover air fare and housing, but not food or other miscellaneous expenses. Fred asked what about chaperones. Several board members suggested that only one chaperone would be necessary. Clyde Kruskal asked where the money should come from. Fred King replied that the WBL could pay, and get reimbursement from the District 6 Bridge-in-Schools fund.

The Board agreed to go forward after getting details from Patty Tucker. Donna Rogall will prepare flyers.

Ellen Rosenthal reported that currently the WBL program has six schools participating, most recently Washington Episcopal. There are a total of six teachers working in the program.

Nadine Wood reported that she received an e-mail from a person proposing a bridge program for a school in Southeast Washington. Nadine passed the e-mail along to Ellen Rosenthal. Jim Geist suggested that Nadine refer the author of the e-mail to Shawn Stringer in connection with the Instant Bridge Player program.

Ellen suggested that books be provided as part of the school curriculum. Carole Banks suggested that the WBL subsidize part of the cost for books. Steve Robinson suggested that we get books that the Richmond unit developed and copy them. Ellen Rosenthal suggested using the Easybridge books. Fred King asked the cost, confirming that 100 books would cost $7 each. Fred King then moved the Board to authorize Ellen Rosenthal to purchase books as soon as possible. Some books should be aimed at younger children, and some geared more for youth and adults. The order should be 100 books. WBL would then seek reimbursement from District 6. Jim Geist seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

Report from Detroit Nationals

Nadine Wood reported that Jerry Machlin will be awarded posthumously the Blackwood Hall of Fame Award. ACBL has not yet made a decision whether to move headquarters out of Memphis. The Board approved a mini-bridge program in elementary schools, starting in September. ACBL would reimburse teacher salaries, etc.

The Board passed a motion clarifying the number of unit team games allowed.

The Conditions of Contest Committee has changed the rules to disallow the Multi Two Diamonds convention from national events involving less than six boards per segment. This would have the effect of banning it from the National pair games, but not the Swiss team or knockout events. Units and Districts would still be allowed to choose whether to allow Multi in their tournaments. This new rule will go into effect the day following the conclusion of the 2008 Summer North American Bridge Championship (“NABC”) in Las Vegas.

The Board made an adjustment to the masterpoint plan resulting from a programming error. The plan puts a cap of 40,000 masterpoints per team when calculating masterpoint awards in the top bracket of a regional bracketed knockout. Also, the Board adjusted the masterpoint award downward slightly for brackets containing less than 16 teams.

Beginning with the Las Vegas NABC, all electronic devices capable of sending and receiving signals, including cell phones, will be banned entirely from the playing room. It will not be enough to turn the devices off; they must not be brought in the playing room at all. Nadine expressed concern that this was a policy bound to fail, particularly given the burden on local commuter attendees to NABCs, who do not have the option of leaving cell phones in their hotel room.

St. Elizabeth’s Game

Fred King reported that the WBL has for many years supported the game at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a mental health institution in Southeast Washington. They hold 10 games per year. The ACBL has waived all sanction and card fees. Typically it draws seven to nine tables. They need a new director, as the previous director is no longer able to continue running the game. Fred proposed that the WBL and the NVBA share the cost of hiring a director to run the game. If both units approve, the cost would be $375 per year from each unit to cover the director fees. Fred King moved to approve the above-noted plan to support the St. Elizabeth’s game, provided that the NVBA agrees to pick up the other half. Ellen Cherniavsky seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

Elections

Fred King reported that the membership lists have been procured from ACBL for the WBL’s Annual Meeting, and Jim Allen has again graciously agreed to chair the meeting. We will need an annual Treasurer’s Report, as well as the draft Minutes from the 2007 Annual Meeting for approval. Updated paper copies of WBL policies should also be made available. Fred King will present the President’s awards, plus the Ace of Clubs and Mini McKenney awards.

Putting the WBL Directory on the Website

Fred King related a suggestion by Barry DePristo to post the WBL’s telephone directory on the WBL website. Via e-mail, Ted Ying reminded the Board that this would pose a problem with “spam robots” mining this private information from the internet. Don Berman reminded the board about problems with both “opt-in” and “opt-out” disclosure: with “opt-in”, the list is likely to be woefully incomplete, and with “opt-out”, there will be many members who fail to opt out and will be irate when their contact information appears on the web site. Nadine Wood suggested an alternative of maintaining streamlined paper copies, updated frequently but provided in a less expensive form than the booklets the WBL has issued in the past. Don Berman noted that if the Board decided to put contact information on the WBL web site, a password requirement could be added to access the names, in order to prevent access to everybody on the internet.

The Board arrived at the consensus opinion that the directory should not be put online, because of privacy concerns.

Combined Pair/BAM Games

Steve Robinson noted that for the Unit’s holiday party game, which is a combined pair game and board-a-match (“BAM”) with assigned teammates, WBL policies expressly state that the BAM masterpoint awards do not count toward the annual trophy races, only the pair event masterpoints. Steve contended that the intention of the Board at the time was that computer-assigned BAM masterpoints should never count toward trophy races, since the team is formed by computer, not by choice, and therefore teammates are effectively “randomly” assigned. He contended further that the intent was that the limitation should apply to all combined pair and computer-assigned team events, and not just the holiday party. This issue arose because the WBL held such a combined pair and computer-assigned BAM team event on the Friday night of a recent sectional.

Steve Robinson moved that the WBL Policies, under “Trophies”, be changed as follows. Under the list of “Points Excluded” currently appears:

2.  Thursdays BAM portion of Bracketed pair games and the Life Master/Non-life master game.

Under the motion, this clause would be changed to:

2.  (a) Team event awards from all events which are combined pair and team games, where the team is formed by computer assignment; and (b) the Life Master/Non-life master game.

The motion passed, Don Berman dissenting. The Board then considered when the effective date of this new policy should be. The Board unanimously decided to make the new policy effective January 1, 2009.

Knockout Games

Steve Robinson explained that for the August Sectional, the WBL will hold a compact knockout event on Saturday, with four rounds of knockouts finishing in one day. The WBL used to have a policy to count double the masterpoints actually won toward the WBL trophy races, as a means of encouraging the membership to play in knockout games. That policy was eventually deleted, as the WBL many years ago discontinued having regular 4-session knockouts at Sectionals, due to poor attendance for the event. Steve posed the question of whether the WBL wants to reinstate this policy, now that the WBL has a compact knockout sectional event. After discussion, the consensus of the Board was not to change the current policies in this regard.

Next Meeting

The next WBL Board meeting will be held April 23, 2008 at Richard Ferrin’s house. The Board thanked Don Berman for his hospitality.

Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 10:41 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

99900.04194 HW_US 25513227v1

Richard Ferrin, Secretary