February 2017

Call to Order and Approval of Minutes: President Dave Puryear called the meeting to order at 3:35 pm. The minutes of the January 12, 2017 meeting were approved as submitted. Other directors present included Leslie Altick, Gill Barsley, Marolyn Imaoka, Todd Makler, Alan Polish, John Schwartz, and Susan Zhang.

Weekend/Evening Usage Committee – Dave reminded the Board that one of the options for Saturday use of the Bridge Center was a Unit sponsored game. After the first game, Paul Davis and Geri McDonnald proposed that they own the game as detailed below.

Saturday Game Proposal from Paul Davis and Gerri McDonald: The game would be the same format as the Unit sponsored game. It would take place roughly once a month. The first game had 14 tables, 7 of newer players, 7 open tables. Based on these numbers, one game per month would surpass the minimum required for the monthly Saturday game. The Board approved the motion to enter into a license agreement with Paul and Geri for the Saturday game proposed. There may be more than one game a month if there are no other events scheduled.

Firecracker 2017 Update – Gill reported she used the Pianola system to email Firecracker announcements to members of 27 units within 200 miles of Unit 503. As ACBL partners with Pianola, she was able to reach 6,000 people with this communication. Marolyn agreed to be the chair for parking for the tournament, and several other volunteers are already on board to help. Only one of the directors for the Firecracker will be from out of town and require a hotel. The flyers are all printed. Dave urged her to think about a plan to avoid having to turn away players, e.g., more efficient use of space, online sign-ups, etc.

SiVY Volunteer Appreciation Game – Dave announced that SiVY’s Volunteer Appreciation game is scheduled for the June 24 Unit Game. As it did last year, SiVY proposes to pay the Unit $10 per volunteer and provide cake for all. The bigger turnout for the game results in higher rent that approximately offsets the discounted table fee. The Board approved the proposal.

Pianola Update – As she was unable to attend the meeting, Jody sent a report to the board. Jody’s major task this month was cleaning the Unit’s Pianola member database of people who live outside the area, are deceased, or have not played in a long time. If anyone was deleted erroneously, all club owners will have the ability to reinstate. As a result of this effort, our database now contains 1021 members who will receive mail from the Unit.

NLM Survey Results – Dave reported on the survey results and analysis of non-life master members conducted for the Unit by Jim Hulseman and Carl Baeuerlen. The survey elicited a high, 25% response rate. Highlights of the findings included: 84% of the non life masters said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with their experience at the Unit. Approximately one-third expressed an interest in having more evening games. 20% wanted more games to have sections with lower point limits. When looking at their experience playing in the 499er and Open games, 80% of the non life masters said they were either satisfied or very satisfied that the more experienced players make them feel welcome. However, when looking only at their experience in the open game, only 50% of the non life masters were satisfied the players were welcoming. With respect to the Non-Life Master tournaments, 90% said that playing in the tournaments was a pleasurable experience. 90% said they would play in these tournaments in the future. 82% said they felt there were adequate education opportunities for them at the Unit. Thank you to Carl and Jim for this survey design and analysis.

May NLM Sectional – The board approved buying an ad in the District Forum to promote this sectional.

Reports:

President: Dave alerted the board that Silicon Valley Youth Bridge (SiVY) will be requesting the Peninsula Bridge Education Foundation (PBEF) sponsor the upcoming high school bridge championships. The new IFES rental agent is Bruno Avila. To contact him, call and leave a voicemail. Last year’s mentor program had 23 active mentor/mentee pairs. There are 5 new pairings in 2017, with 10 more in the works. The PBEF will give each mentor 2 free plays. Dave has not been able to find a volunteer to manage food for the Unit games. As a result we have hired Trish Steele to take this on until a volunteer is found. The Bridge Center cleaning day went well. IFES members moved their items out of the storage space the Unit rents and our volunteers cleared out extraneous stuff. SiVY is planning to get their belongings out of the way. Dave also asked the Board to help identify volunteers to accomplish the following tasks. 1) Inspect the Bridge Center to find and fix places where paint is chipped and needs spackling and/or touchup painting (Alan volunteered to do this.) 2) Evaluate whether it makes sense for the Unit to upgrade its projection system for use by lecturers. 3) Investigate whether there are ways to improve the acoustics in the Center. Acoustic tiles? Other?

Technology Committee: The next task of the committee is to address a reservation system for club owners. We are moving forward without Pianola, for whom this is not a priority. Since the last meeting, however, John Schwartz has provided Paul Davis with the means to test using his reservation system for the Friday game. Paul is in the process of doing this. One issue that has been highlighted is that the database associated with the reservation system contains more data than has been made available to the Unit. A policy needs to be developed defining who has access to this database. This will be discussed in more detail in the future. There was no Board action required at this time.

Unit Games: Gill shared a year-end recap of the unit games. In 2016, Unit games attracted 700 tables. They generated $30.9K I revenue. The net profit (before the rental payment to the Bridge Center) was $15.2K.

Treasurer: Todd reported that the financials of the Unit are very solid. He also referred Board members to the proposed income statement he has constructed and asked for feedback on the categories. Leslie will respond to Todd’s request.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm. The next meeting will be held March 9th .