April 2023

Board of Directors Meeting Minutes ACBL Unit 503

Wednesday, April 12, 2023 via Zoom

Directors Present

David Merenbach, Marc Cervellino, Dianne Giancarlo, Liz Koh, Geraldine MacDonald, John Schwartz, Dan Thatte, Eli Wismer, Stephanie Youngquist

Others Present During All or Portions of the Meeting

Alan Templeton

M/S/P = Moved/Seconded/Passed

Call to Order

David Merenbach, President of the Board, served as Chair of the meeting, called the meeting to order at 4:00PM and announced that a quorum of the Board members was present and that the meeting, having duly convened, was ready to proceed with business.

Approval of Meeting Minutes

Eli W. announced that the minutes of the March 8, 2023 Board Meeting were approved via email.

Finance Update

Marc C. discussed that our F2F play table count is slowly increasing since last June. Net Operating Income in March was positive, but Cash Flow decreased. We had a Net Operating Loss and Negative Cash Flow for the first three months of the year, both better than budget however.

Sectional Update

Marc C. discussed our upcoming Sectional Tournaments at the club.

Unit 507 will hold a Sectional at our Club on April 29-30.

San Mateo Unit has requested to hold a Sectional at our Club on Aug 12-13. It was proposed to approve this request. M/S/P.

Firecracker and Combined NLM Regional

We had proposed to District 21 to hold a NLM Regional during the Firecracker Open Sectional in July.  The District approved this proposal. Thanks to David M. and Marc C. for their persuasive presentation to the District.

Marc and Gerry M. will Co-Chair this tournament.

Publicity – we will send emails every three weeks about this event, with the last one the week before the tournament. A flyer will be placed on the ACBL website, and an announcement placed in the District 21 Diamond in the Ruff newsletter.

Volunteers are sorely needed for the event.

Women’s Bathroom

There is still a problem with leakage in the Women’s Bathroom.  It was proposed to authorize an expense of up to $3,000 to fix the toilets so that they do not leak over the floor, and to repair or upgrade the toilet paper and soap dispensers. M/S/P.

Thank You for Service Gift

Both Jim Hulseman and Carl Baeuerlen have stepped down from their volunteer positions after many years of diligent service to the Club.  It was proposed to authorize a $250 gift card for them as a thank you. M/S/P. 

Vaccination Policy

David M. informed the Board that at the last District 21 meeting, there was discussion regarding changing the current Vaccination checking policy, and asked how we suggested it should be handled. The consensus opinion was to no longer require a vaccination check, but if any player at a table requests, then all players at that table should be required to wear a mask during their time at that table. David will take this as our recommendation for the next District discussion on this subject.

Game Times

David M. led a discussion on whether we should experiment with different game times in an effort to boost F2F play. David and John S. will continue that discussion with the game Directors.

2024 Proposed Sectional Tournament Schedule

Marc C. proposed the following dates for Unit 503 Sectionals in 2024.

April 5-7

May 17-19

July 10-14 (Firecracker)

October 25-27

It was proposed to ask District 21 for Sanctions for these dates and for these tournaments to be both Open and NLM Sectionals. M/S/P.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:38pm.