January 2018

January 11, 2018

Call to Order: President Dan Thatte called the meeting to order at 3:32pm. The minutes of the December 7th, 2017 meeting were approved as submitted. Other board members present included Leslie Altick, Kip Kado, Anne Keyser, Geri MacDonald, Alan Polish, Dave Puryear, John Schwartz and Susan Zhang.

Unit Games: Dave Puryear reported on Unit Games. The January games are scheduled for the 27th and 28th. Unit games are scheduled and sanctioned through March. Will can direct all but the January 27th game. Dave is working on a director for that game. Trish Steele is doing the food, but Dave will be asking for food volunteers for some games. Anne Keyser agreed to help as a consultant in this effort.

John Schwartz said it is possible to add Unit Games and Tournaments to our reservation at the same rate as for our other games. The Board voted to do so. Dave and John will follow up.

Following last month’s discussion about using Pianola for partnerships for Unit games and Tournaments, Lori Spaeth asked Pianola about the feasibility. Pianola will not be able to work on this feature until later in 2018.

Stakeholders’ Feedback to the Outreach Letter: Dan gave an abbreviated overview of the feedback he received from his outreach letter to solicit suggestions for 2018 Board priorities. With only time to mention a few, he highlighted that the Unit must find a successor to Kevin O’Leary as building manager (Kevin would like to retire from that role). Another suggested priority is to develop new directors. More priority should be placed on events/classes for intermediate and newer players, as such a high percent of the Unit’s members are not Life Masters. Lastly, one suggestion was to begin outreach to attract new members through municipalities. There will be additional discussion of other potential 2018 priorities at next month’s meeting with more time allotted.

Status of Financial Transition: Susan reiterated the concern expressed at the December meeting about the projected 2018 deficit. She noted that there are many options that could be pursued to reduce the deficit. She will provide graphs of table fees by month before the next meeting to provide context for the decline in revenue from table fees. The actual financial results for 2017 proved better than expected – a surplus of $4678. Thus, as the Board expected in December, addressing the 2018 deficit need not be an immediate task. After the first quarter’s results are in and there is some understanding of trends, the Board will decide, if needed, what steps to pursue. The Board thanked Susan for her quick migration of financial data to Quickbooks.

Approval of 2018 Budget: After discussion of the financial drivers of the projected deficit, the Board approved the 2018 Budget.

Technology Update: Dan had provided the Board with a copy of the Proposal from Reliqus Consulting to build the new platform for the Unit’s website. Jody Williams and Alan Templeton have been working with this vendor (who did the work for the Corvette Club’s website). The message they sent the Board included the consultant’s response to all their questions.  The proposal addressed all the requirements Jody and Alan requested, including the ability to have the persons responsible for events/information on the site make appropriate changes themselves. The motion to update the web platform per this proposal passed.

New Business: Anne Keyser and Dave Puryear will act as Firecracker liaisons with co-chairs Carl Baeuerlen and Don Cohn. The Board expressed special thanks to Carl and Don for suggesting the Firecracker Chairperson position should be a two-year term. They observed that the first year was really about ascending the learning curve with the prior chairperson’s coaching. The second year should be about not only running the tournament, but also training the next chair. Carl and Don will be drafting an email blast asking for a volunteer graphic artist and whichever volunteer positions are needed in the short term. Kip Kado reported that the District, at the recent meeting, asked for players to support the Modesto Regional. Due to late cancellations at the last Modesto tournament, the District owes a $14,000 penalty to the hotel.  The hotel will forgive the penalty by holding another tournament there.  We hope to prevent the problem from recurring by having a one night non refundable deposit at time of booking.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:32 pm. The next meeting will be on February 8.