August 2016

Call to Order: Dave Puryear, President, called the meeting to order at 3:30pm. Directors Leslie Altick, Leslie Altick, Gill Barsley, Peggy Chen, Paul Davis, Todd Makler, and Jody Williams were also present. Unit member Geri MacDonald was also in attendance. The Board approved the minutes of the July 14 meeting as submitted.

Storage Space Usage: There are several suggestions as to how to use the storage space that we are now renting. They include food service (with removal of the half wall), a second space for a dealing machine, chair and kitchen overflow storage. Dave would like a specific proposal to take to IFES in September. The Unit will save $50/month if a permanent table setup can be devised (cost of janitor setting up tables each week). The proposal will address whether we want the space if the wall cannot be removed and whether we want to continue paying $500/mo. Jim Harris, Dave, Jody and Marilyn will be the committee to develop the proposal.

EZ Bridge: The Friday beginner game is too small to survive without help. It feeds the limited games and provides a training ground for new directors. Kathy Harper does promote the EZ game in her classes. Geri (a new director) has surveyed the mailing list for EZ game and says there is no one reason for the decline in attendance. She suspects that many newer players work and simply are not available during the week. She also observed that as a recent arrival to the area, she had a hard time finding out about the Bridge Center and suggests we need more publicity. Paul suggested that the Unit take over sponsoring and marketing Saturday events for which a director is hired. Including the director’s fee and food, the breakeven for such an event would be about 4 tables. The board passed a motion to have a 6-month trial period for such events starting September 1.

Politics and Zero Tolerance: The issue of what to do about potentially acrimonious political discussions at the Bridge Center will be left to be handled by individual club owners.

Reports

President: The nominating committee proposed a slate of board candidates consisting of Anne Keyser, Todd Makler, Alan Polish, Dave Puryear, and Susan Zhang.

Flooring: The new flooring in the food court, directors’ area, and hallway by the kitchen has been widely praised. The question has been raised whether the carpeting should be replaced sooner than next year. Peggy and Lori Spaeth will come back to the Board with a proposal in September.

Technology Committee: Jody reported the Pianola trial has been expanded to include all the sections in the Wednesday night game. It will not be expanded further until the process of results uploading is simplified. The website function within Pianola was used to build the website for our Peninsula Bridge Education Foundation (PBEF), except for the donation button (a Paypal problem). Jody concluded that Pianola will not be suitable to update the Unit’s entire website. In consultation with our Webmaster, she is exploring other options.

Finance Committee: The Finance Committee will meet to review a draft of the 2017 budget August 16.

Education Funding: Paul reported that PBEF has a bank account, is working on a logo, and has Tuesday lectures booked through February 2017.

Unit Games: As in 2015, there was a minor drop off in table counts for the unit games in July. This year, the table count was affected by a conflict with a memorial service for a long time unit member.

Treasurer: Todd reported that the Unit has a cushion above its benchmark cash position, and all reserves remain untouched at this point in the year. Thanks to the creativity of the Board in meeting the financial challenges the Unit faced at year-end, the Unit should end 2016 comfortably in the black.

Adjournment: Dave adjourned the meeting at 5:04 pm. The next meeting will be on September 15 (not September 8) at 3:30 pm.