August 2018

August 9, 2018 Meeting of the Unit 503 Board of Directors

President Dan Thatte called the meeting to order at 3:53 pm. The minutes of the July 12, 2018 meeting were approved as submitted. Other board members present included Leslie Altick, Kip Kado, Anne Keyser, Gerry MacDonald, Alan Polish, Dave Puryear, John Schwartz, and Susan Zhang.

Finance report: Susan compared July 2018 and YTD actuals with 2017 results. The Unit is tracking favorably with budget. Once all the July expenses are tabulated, the Unit should show a positive variance with budget. This is due to the positive effect of this year’s Firecracker, which was more financially successful than last year’s event. Thank you to co-chairs Carl Baeuerlen and Don Cohn and the entire team of volunteers who made this possible! Susan will send the final financial results of the Firecracker to the Board before the end of the month.

NLM Regional: Dan summarized the consensus he had gathered in his discussions with the Board members. The Board agreed that the Unit should make a proposal to District 21 expressing our interest in hosting a Non Life Master Regional. We are looking into possible dates at least six months out, as the District requested. We will hold it separately from the Firecracker as a two-day weekend tournament. And it will be limited to 50 tables. Once we have approval from the District, we will talk about details. Dan will inform Stuart Goodgold at the District of our interest so it can be discussed at the District 21 September meeting.

Bridge Center scheduling: Dave summarized the discussion the committee on scheduling (Alan Templeton, Alan Cummings, and Dave) held on Monday. They created a list that ranks all the possible event types that need to be scheduled by priority. The Board will study the list, provide feedback, and finalize it at the September meeting. The proposal envisions the Master Scheduler as the mediator of what is hoped will be a small number potential calendar conflicts. The priority list should address the majority of questions of those who need to schedule dates. Alan Cummings is also going to chair a “weekend usage group” which will investigate the viability of having as many as one NLM weekend tournament per month (both 1 and 2-day). Now that the template for running them has been developed and tested, it should be a much simpler type of event to chair than something the scale of the Firecracker. The Board will begin the process of finding volunteers who might be willing to chair one or more of these tournaments.

Mentor Mentee Program update: Anne said she has received lots of calls from both potential mentors and mentees. She is in the process of talking with each of them.