February 2018

February 8, 2018

Call to Order and Approval of Jan 11th 2018 meeting minutes: President Dan Thatte called the meeting to order at 3:45pm. The minutes of the January 11, 2018 meeting were approved as submitted. Other board members present included Leslie Altick, Geri MacDonald, Alan Polish, Dave Puryear, and Susan Zhang. Kip Kado, Anne Keyser, and John Schwartz were unable to attend.

Preview of the new Unit Website: Alan Templeton reminded the Board that the Unit’s website is currently hosted on his home computer. Although it is backed up, Alan is the only person who can make changes to the site. The consultants with whom we are working have a system that hosts websites world wide. With the new website, every change will not have to thread through Alan. Alan showed the board several of the layout options for the homepage and other locations in our site. He said that the Technology Committee is close to selecting one with a more modern look with more white space. Several board members made suggestions about making it easy to get to the reservation system and information about the Firecracker. There were also suggestions about including search terms that would make it easy for search engines to find our homepage. Alan will take this feedback back to the Committee.

Parking Lot Break-ins: Alan Polish reviewed the facts of the recent car break-ins at a Wednesday night game. He spoke with all affected parties and the police. The police just apprehended a large laptop-stealing ring and are hopeful that the incident will not be repeated. IFES has acknowledged that it needs to fix both the lighting and the light timers. We also want the to display signs warning people to lock their cars and keep their electronics with them, or out of sight. Because of the liability exposure to the Unit, the Board decided not to share the cost of a privately hired security guard should a teacher or game owner decide to hire his/her own guard. If the Unit ever wanted to hire a guard, the Board decided to contract with the professional guards used by IFES, who are vetted and insured. Alan and Alan Templeton will follow-up with IFES on the practicality of using them.

Finance report: Susan reported that all 2017 data has been converted to Quickbooks. The next step will be mapping the accounts from Quicken to Quickbooks. The Board thanked her for her quick action on this conversion. She also stated that she has paid this year’s Directors’ and Officers’ Liability Insurance premium.

Update on the Firecracker sectional: Co-chairs Carl Baeuerlen and Don Cohn attended the meeting to brief the Board on the status of the Firecracker. All committee co-chairs have been filled except for Room Setup. The budget projects a profit, even at conservative estimates of table count. Expenses have been set conservatively as well, and probably will not be as high as estimated. One bit of good news is that the tournament directors will not be charging overtime this year. Parking at the Buddhist Temple has not been finalized, which is typical at this point in the year. Flyers start posting on February 8. The Board suggested that Carl and Don put together a list of all the upcoming sectionals and regionals so that unit members could sign up to deliver flyers.

IFES Rental: Dave explained that we have agreed to rent our facility on March 13 to the Freedom Forum. They will be holding a reception prior to the dinner/presentation in the IFES facility.

New Business: Dan sent letters to several unit stakeholders in December to solicit their feedback to see what priorities should be focus areas for the Board. He would like to thank them for their responses. Here are some of the common themes in what they suggested:

Upgrading technology for the Unit 503 website
Focusing on the Firecracker
Financial transition to QuickBooks
Finding a replacement for Kevin O’Leary as the bridge center manager
Developing new directors
Improving attendance for Unit Games
Focusing on beginners and intermediates (because 50% of Unit members are under 125 MP’s and 70% are under 500 MP’s)
Promoting NLM sectionals
More communication tailored to/with them
Improving the playing experience for them
Reviewing and updating the Mentor/Mentee Program
Continuing to improve communication on upcoming events
Developing and publishing a 1 page Kibitzer”
The board is actively working on many of these issues and continues to make progress on them. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:21 pm.

The Annual Meeting for the Unit membership will take place on March 8, 2018 at 3:30 pm. The next meeting of the Board will follow at 4:45 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Leslie Altick