July 2015

President Jody Williams called the meeting to order at 3:47 pm. Present were Board members Kevin O’Leary, Paul Davis, Leslie Altick, Todd Makler, and Dave Puryear. Also in attendance were Gill and Paul Barsley, John Prior and Jackie Zayac.

The minutes from the June 9, 2015 meeting were approved.

District Election: Jackie Zayac, candidate for 2nd Alternate to the District Director, spoke on behalf of her candidacy. She emphasized her interest in growing the game by facilitating the development of new players. She described her experience in a variety of responsible positions with her Unit and the District.

Report on Firecracker 2015: Gill and Paul Barsley provided a detailed report on the recent Firecracker Sectional. The event raised approximately $6,000 for Second Harvest Food Bank and it ran very smoothly. The Board expressed its gratitude to the Barsleys for all their excellent work. For reasons we do not fully understand, the overall table count was down from 2014, resulting in a net loss of approximately $2,400. Expenses were carefully controlled but many of them are fixed expenses while the revenue depends on how many players show up to play.

Firecracker 2016: The Santa Clara Convention Center is not available for next year’s Firecracker, but we have reserved those dates at the IFES Hall, adjacent to our Bridge Center. This venue will pose some new challenges, but it will have some significant advantages also. The Board expressed a preference for dates close to the 4th of July, in keeping with our Firecracker theme. Next steps are recruiting a Director for the event and setting the playing schedule. There was some discussion regarding reimbursement for club games displaced by holding the event at our own facility, but it was pointed out that these games are closed during our sectional anyway, so no reimbursement is needed.

Free Play Administration: The Board agreed to avoid a duplication of effort by making the Treasurer responsible for free plays, and relieving the Unit Game coordinator of this task. Todd will propose language to amend our policy document regarding free plays.

President’s Report: Jody reported that the plaques honoring several of our members are ready and will soon be mounted. She noted that we need to do a better job of recognizing our volunteers, both to honor them and to educate our members about the amount of volunteer work that is involved in keeping the Center going. Jody also noted that it is time for the Nominating Committee to begin its work.

Nominating Committee: By tradition this Committee is composed of the returning Board members (Paul Davis, Todd Makler, and Dave Puryear). Dave Puryear agreed to chair this Committee which will meet again next week. There was discussion of candidates by the whole Board and the Nominating Committee is asking the current Board members whose terms are expiring to consider running again in the interest of continuity. The by-laws permit a larger Board, but the unit has had trouble finding enough willing candidates. The Nominating Committee’s goal in this request is to retain more experience while adding new members as well.

Education Fund Update: Paul Davis reported on progress with 501(c)3 status for the Education Fund, which would allow donations to be tax-deductible. We have not located pro-bono legal support yet, but the new process is streamlined for organizations with annual budgets under $50,000, so we are proceeding one step at a time.

Skills Survey: Leslie reported that work on the skills survey is expected to begin next week with help from Elan Winkler.

Finance Committee: Leslie also reported that the Finance Committee felt that 2 years prepaid rent was the most the unit should consider in its negotiations with IFES. This could be done without additional fundraising and would allow the Unit to see how the 2016 Firecracker does, before we take further financial risks. The Board agreed with this assessment.

Treasurer’s Report: We are close to our projected budget so far this year. We budgeted a profit of $1500 from the Firecracker, but it lost $2500 or so (final bills still coming in so amounts are estimated). This is a $4,000 deficit relative to the budget. For the year, the key question will be how well the Larry Cohen seminars do. So far, ticket sales are doing well enough that a profit is expected.

Other Business: The discussion of how we document the activities of our Recorder was deferred until the next meeting. The issue of the Saturday and Sunday games will also be addressed at that meeting.

The next Board meeting was changed from August 11 to August 4 at 3:45. The September meeting was also rescheduled to August 31 at 3:45.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:15pm.