Minutes of the October 1, 2007 Unit 503 Board Meeting
Meeting was called to order by President Alan Cummings. All were present except Liz Blum and Dave Wheeler. Guests Elinor Tanck, Suzanna Krulevitch and Steve Lubeck were also present.
Last month’s minutes were accepted.
Kibitzer report: Elinor reports that the November issue will be 6 pages. She also distributed a copy of the quarterly ACBL Unit QUIP report.
Treasurer’s Report: Alan Templeton presented his usual detailed red line report, indicated we’re in great shape, still owe $4K+ for the dealing machine which is currently on trial. Bridge Center table counts continue to be above last year.
Bridge Center Closure during Nationals… The board discussed sending information to the club owners to keep the club open during the upcoming NABCs in November since not all are interested in venturing to the city during the busy holiday period
Membership: Our membership continues to grow. Suzanna commented her concern regarding absorption of all the new bridge players from the Beginner Class that Lori and Frank are running. We welcome them, hope they beat down our doors, we’ll make room, no problem, maybe we’ll put up tables out in the parking lot, says Alan Cummings.
2008 Firecracker Update: Steve Lubeck has been working hard with the Hyatt Hotel to secure us space during our usual Fourth of July weekend period. Finally, after some luck and some great effort on the part of Steve and the hotel staff, we do have space. The schedule of events/times is not yet complete, but we do plan to run a full 4-day event, with one evening session the first night after set-up. This is shorter than last year, but facilities were not available. How many concurrent events to run to cover sleepers-in, workers, the sleepless is not yet certain, but Steve will check with the Director In Charge and let us know. The room rate will be $99, up from last year, but fortunately we will need to fill only 65 rooms instead of the 80 we were required to fill last year. Also the water will be free – good news since last year that cost us $500.
Service & Sportsmanship Awards: Ginger Herrick has prepared voting boxes and is taking a count on who shall receive these awards. Gabriella brought up the question regarding naming these awards after an individual in perpetuity which did not meet with positive responses. It was decided that the awards shall remain unnamed at the present time until further discussion.
Dealing Machine: Alan Templeton has been testing/using the dealing machine to be certain that it works properly – we have only 3 months to accept or reject it. He found that it worked well for the most part. It did fail once, required email exchange. The solution was to clean the rollers with industrial spirits. Alan T. also wrote detailed user instructions which are also posted on the website so that any director/owner could come in and use the machine. Alan T. also commented that the user interface between DealMaster Pro and the Dealer 4 Program is certainly not seamless. The good news is that we will be receiving all STAC games electronically now which can be then output via the dealer, saving all directors much time.
Bridge Pads: We continue to test and evaluate the Bridge Pads for automatic scoring. We are informing the manufacturer of problems we find but are not at a point of making any kind of firm purchase decision.
District 21 Goodwill Award: Nominations are due to the District 21 by December 1. Many on the board thought that we should nominate more than one person this year, since we are a large Unit and we have three excellent candidates, all deserving of nomination. Gabriella will find out if we can nominate more than one person. Board members were asked to submit their nomination(s) by October 18th.
UNIT Games Report: Martie informed us that October 14 will be a Unit Swiss Teams. She invited John Mattis to direct the newcomer/intermediate section. Claire will be running the regular section. We can accommodate 35 tables max., and expect an excellent turnout. Cake will be provided
The November 18 Unit Pot Luck will include two catered roast turkeys with stuffing and gravy at the price of $250. Members to provide a “pot luck” item. We expect a huge crowd, as in past years.
The Unit Holiday Party is set for December 9th. Martie suggested dropping the food aspect of it and also having toy donations occur during several months. She would be willing to collect them so that when the crowds arrive we have more room. Her idea of no food was not received without discussion by the board members who felt that as a unit we should return to our members this free party once a year. The problem is that we cannot use the additional space of the back room this year, which limits us to 35 tables. The board voted therefore, that this would be on a first-come-first-serve basis, with UNIT MEMBERS and their UNIT PARTNERS getting first priority. If space is available, players outside the unit could sign up after that. It was also decided that we would go with Chef Chu’s again this year, everybody likes it. DEADLINE for sign-ups will be DECMEBER 3. A motion was then made that we limit it to 35 tables, absolute max.
The Stanford Bridge Site: Eric Maefsky is pleased to report that 35! Students are enrolled in his bridge class. GO JUNIORS!
NABC Staffing: Ginger reports that the NABC coordinators are still looking for volunteers on days other than our Sunday, December 2nd. Please contact her if interested.
The meeting was adjourned.