May 2017

Call to Order and Approval of April 13 Minutes: President Dave Puryear called the meeting to order at 3:30 pm. The minutes of the April 13, 2017 meeting were approved as submitted. Other directors present included Gill Barsley, Marolyn Imaoka, Todd Makler, John Schwartz, Susan Zhang, and Jody Williams.

Lights in Alcove: Kevin O’Leary has a quote for the lights in the alcove – just under $800 (this comes out of capital expenses). The board agreed unanimously to move forward with this job. Dave Puryear will inform Kevin.

New Coffee Machines: Kevin OLeary priced them at $675.00 each, free shipping, and with the purchase of 2 units with tax the bill will be approximately $735.00 each. The old units are leaking and will eventually compromise the subflooring. The board voted to go ahead with the purchase.

Firecracker Update: Gill Barsley reported the following:
1. The partnership desk is fully staffed
2. The banners have been retrieved from storage and Gill is sending them to be patched with this year’s dates.
3. The schedule is being printed as well as 125 copies of 2 sided flier to be given to San Jose & Burlingame members to promote the tournament.
4. Parking is going as scheduled, with the day care center and the Buddhist temple parking spaces on track for our use. Marolyn Imaoka will be working with the Boy Scouts to make sure everything stays on track.
5. The Sheraton bridge rate rooms have filled up. Cheryl Haines has contacted the Sheraton to make more rooms available at the reduced rate of $99.00.
6. Nancy Boyd is set to approve one of three plans for table layouts.
7. Is there a policy for selling out of seating at the sectional? Gill will coordinate with Nancy Boyd and her team to insure that we do not oversell our capacity.
8. We will have a welcome packet at the Sheraton for the players. It will have restaurant information and also advise them that the policy of the sectional will be “first come, first serve” – they will need to register early to assure themselves of playing,
9. Bill Dougherty will be chairing the set up of the Firecracker
10. Gill will find out how many directors are not local – Nancy Boyd was asked to hire local directors if possible.

President’s Reports:
1. Dave Puryear held the annual meeting on April 22, before the unit game. There was confusion on April 30 at the Swiss teams for the provision of lunch (failure to communicate). Thanks to the efforts of Kathy Puryear, Paul Davis, and Will Watson, food was provided. Trish Steele will provide the lunches from now on; she now has the dates of the games.
2. Dave Puryear is buying all of the bidding cards as approved by the board last month.
3. Dave Puryear will convene a group to focus on communicating with members either through the website or via email blasts. Carol Field, Judi Gentry, Jody Williams and Alan Templeton will participate. People do not seem to be using the website except for the game results. John Schwartz feels that it may be worthwhile to have something like the Kibitzer published once or twice a year. The printed word is still valued. The problem with the Kibitzer is finding someone willing to spend the effort to produce it. Dave Puryear suggested a “year in review” focus might work.
4. Bridgepads versus Bridgemates – we are mulling over the pros & cons of replacing our Bridgepads with Bridgemates. Todd Makler will research the last three years to see how much we spent for fixing the broken bridgepads. Jody will look into the comparison and do the information gathering. Will Watson did not have strong feelings for or against either product. John Schwartz suggested that directors go to the clubs that use Bridgemates and try them out. This decision will ultimately rest with our directors, as they are the ones who will be working with the units.

Technology Committee: Jody said the updated fee schedule has been put in the website and all information regarding the partnership desk has been removed. She is exploring the updating of our website to newer technology. Jody to be member of the website committee.

Unit Games: Gill states that our numbers are down from last year at 87.5 tables through April. This is partially because the NLM (non life master) games were held in May this year instead of April. There is still a net profit of $2770.87 for the 4 months.

Treasurer’s Report: Todd is happy with our numbers, our fiscal numbers and cash flow is fine. The NLM was 101 tables and profitable. The Helms seminar is being held soon so there is no data yet. April table counts are down and one reason is there were fewer working days in the month.

The next meeting is June 8th, and it will be the last meeting before the Firecracker.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:10.