ACBL Unit 503 Meeting Minutes 4/11/06
The meeting was called to order by President Alan Cummings. All board members were present except Mona Maltz. The usual suspects, Will Watson and Elinor Tanck, were also present.
Kudos to Roy for the last unit game (Charity Pairs 4/9/2006). There were two sections, 16 tables in an open section and 3 tables in an intermediate/novice section. Some were disappointed by the small I/N section, but there were three more tables than we had last year.
Alan C. had a new Swiss team board made (at no charge to the Unit – thank you Alan). We now have 3 Swiss team boards.
The insurance for directors and board members is now in place. We were uninsured for a while.
Last month’s minutes were accepted as written.
Alan T. gave the treasurer’s report. The Unit has a balance of $35,984.49, and the Center has a balance of $15,208.40. Alan also gave the bridge center table counts based on directors’ payments. The counts for this year are about 10% above those of last year.
It was noted that the backroom has been occupied almost every Sunday. If we needed more room for a large Unit game, the room would not have been available. However, our expansion is on hold while Mr. Twister deals with the city of Mountain View.
The best between-meeting issue that our fearless leader could come up was a call for two-ply toilet paper. The board decided to be hard-asses and keep what we have.
Alan T. was congratulated for his work on our web site. It is quite attractive and very functional.
Old Business
Roy gave a report on the status of our owner license agreement for those games in the bridge center. Roy has the license very close to its final wording. There was a question about our rent limit of 20 tables (if a game has more than 20 tables, the owner only has to pay for 20 tables). One of the evening owners wanted to have a 15-table limit for evening games (which are smaller than day games). After some discussion the board decided to abolish the rent limit altogether (except for Cameron’s game as long as Cameron owns the game). The board also decided to charge less rent for all novice games and lessons. In other words, if an owner has an under-20 point game, she would pay the same rent for the game as Easy Bridge and Frank Smoot’s lessons.
New Business
The board discussed what to do about the people who habitually arrive late. We decided we would back each individual director. The players are their customers, so each director can handle these thoughtless people as he or she sees fit.
We also discussed slow play. Again, we decided it was up to the directors to run their games the way they want to.
We talked about stratifying concurrent games (e.g., on Mondays or Tuesdays). In an informal way, they are already stratified. However, some board members were disturbed that experienced players were playing (and winning) in the game mainly populated with less experienced players. It is hard to know what the board could do, so we decided to do nothing.
Alan C. gave a brief report on our recycling. We will get a big container which will take all recyclables.
We talked about the Unit Pro-Am game. We decided to call it the Life Master/Non-Life Master (LM/NLM) game. We have a definite need for more LM’s. We have plenty of NLM’s.
We then adjourned.
Dave Wheeler
Secretary