ACBL Unit 503 Meeting Minutes 8/01/06
The meeting was called to order by President Alan Cummings. All board members were present except Mona Maltz, Roy Robinson, Gabriella Bowling, Dave Bernstein and John Hornback (or, all members were absent except for Alan C., Alan T., Liz Blum, Dave W. Claire Coleman, and Chuck Lane). Will Watson and Elinor Tanck were also present.
Administrative
July’s minutes were approved, mainly by the President who wrote them. The board then unanimously approved the dishwasher door color and thanked Duane for installing it.
Elinor gave the Kibitzer report. There will be a note in the next Kibitzer talking about parking properly (no parking left of speed bump) at the bridge center. Alan C. also suggested that there be a blurb about the Wednesday night game bringing in many new members.
Alan T. gave the treasurer’s report. The unit has a balance of $49519.80, and the bridge center has a balance of $17324.22. Alan also reported an unusual bank fee – they charged us for making too many deposits. What next? Costco charging extra if you go to the store more than once a day, Starbucks charging extra if you place an order less than 12 hours after your last order?
Alan C. also mentioned that the virus protection for our computer had expired. He and Will will take care of it.
Alan C. also mentioned that the ACBL charges $6.00 to update our database with latest masterpoint totals for each member. He will look into doing it.
As has been the trend, table counts (particularly for July) are way up.
The Firecracker was attended by more players than last year’s. It netted the unit $2874.31.
Old Business
The board discussed the revision and update of the unit constitution and by-laws which was worked on by Elinor Tanck and Gene Drew. We gave Elinor several suggestions.
Liz gave the unit membership monthly report. We had 47 new members which consisted of 21 new or reinstated and 26 transfers. We lost 13 members. We have had about a 10% increase during the year to date. We currently have about 739 members. Some interesting statistics include 263 of our members have fewer than 20 masterpoints. 111 of these players have fewer than 5 points.
There have been discussions with Mister Twister concerning our lease. He wants to stay in this location also. As for the backroom, he is negotiating with the Mountain View fire department concerning what needs to be done to maintain the second story. One thing is clear. We will not get if for free. The backroom will be available to the owners during STAC week.
Also, it has become very apparent that we need crash bars on our side of the backdoors. We have had many thefts, and people have been seen coming through those doors after hours and going to the refrigerators.
New Business
Alan C. talked about the need for board candidates. Currently, we have 1 person who said she will run.
Alan C. also talked about the 2007 Firecracker. He has a prime site lined up, the Santa Clara Convention Center next to the Hyatt. They have 11,000 square feet on the first level available. The bottom line is that the cost will be higher, $3780, but we really have no alternative. Alan C. mentioned two ways that we could pay this extra fee.
1) Increase table fees to $10.00.
2) Rent for the first day will be complementary so we should run two sessions instead of just one.
The San Jose has already approved our use of this locale. Roy will be the tournament chairman. The 2008 Firecracker will be at the Hyatt.
Roy was going to have an owners’ meeting. However, it was cancelled because of time conflicts and/or lack of interest.
There have been preliminary exploratory talks with the San Jose Unit on running a joint 299er sectional.
Alan C. mentioned that Sue Johnson is buying Sherie’s Wednesday game. Transfer will take place in September.
We talked about the Tuesday night’s game. Apparently, there is a drop-in “game” for anybody who wants play informal duplicate. There are no points awarded, and the cost is $3.00. We have been asked to do some publicity because they think there are others who want to participate. Elinor agreed to put something in the Kibitzer, and they can post a sign in the club.
Lastly, Alan C. wanted to move the directors’ meeting to a different day. He chose the first Monday of each month. By doing this we can start (and end) earlier, and people won’t have the conflict of playing in Walter’s game and then racing to the Bridge Center for the meeting. The board agreed to the day change.
We then adjourned.
Dave Wheeler
Secretary