Cincinnati bridge Association board meeting September 10, 2013
 
Present were Stephani, Moese, Purcell, Manne, Orr, Levinson (early) and Wisner.
 
The minutes from the July meeting (there was no August meeting) were approved with minor revisions as distributed.
 
We went through our normal review of the 3 priorities:
 
Zero-tolerance-no issues.
Membership-no issues.
Bridge center location - We continued the discussion (without resolution) as to which geographical areas might be suitable for the bridge center. In addition, Sonya Wilson arranged for a bank contact to talk to Treas. Susan Wisner about preapproval for a mortgage. Susan provided the appropriate financial information and after some delay was told by the person at the bank that we would probably be eligible for a mortgage between $300,000 and $400,000. This was simply a verbal discussion and not an official approval, but it provides a baseline.
 
The board discussed the vacancy on the board created by the resignation of Gerri Mirus. While the bylaws do state that the board shall appoint someone to fill any vacancies, a motion was made, seconded and passed as follows. If a board vacancy occurs and the open term is less than 4 months, the board may choose to wait and allow the vacancy to be filled by the next election. This is the action we will take in this case since Gerri’s term ran only through the end of 2013.
 
Since Pres. Stephani had asked board members by email to submit suggestions of people who might be good board members and we reviewed the names suggested. The board agreed that Pres. Stephani should ask Joe Muenks to chair the nominating committee again and to handle the election in October. We will pass along our list and suggestions to Joe but we will leave final creation of a slate of candidates to the nominating committee. The upcoming version of the alert newsletter will contain a notice of the election and a reminder to the membership that anyone who wishes to run for the board may become a candidate by getting 10 member signatures on a petition and submitting it to the nominating committee.
 
President’s report:
The board confirmed the president and treasurer’s decision to give $50 to John Altman Junior in appreciation for his work as he goes off to college. Notice was given that there will be an article in most of the suburban newspapers about the ACBL’s nomination of John Altman as “King of bridge”. In addition, we have a received approval from the ACBL for reimbursements for advertising we will do in the suburban papers for our NLM games.
We had a short discussion about holding public celebrations of the accomplishment of several of our members. This list includes John Altman as king of bridge, Pam and Matthew Granovetter for becoming grand life master’s and Tim Crank for reaching diamond life master. Since none of the board members present felt they had sufficient expertise planning celebrations, Pres. Stephani announced that he would appoint Sonya Wilson (who was not there to defend yourself) to the post.
 
Pres. Stephani also informed us that we finally have a resolution on the matter of a Stac fee for Thursday morning from December 2011. Agnes Delany had steadfastly claimed that she had paid this fee but did not feel it was necessary for her to produce written proof. In the last of many discussions of the issue with Brad Bartol (chairman of the December Stac) it was determined that Brad had made an accounting error and posted Agnes’s check to the obligation for one of the CBA games. We have cut a check for the CBA game and the matter is now settled.
 
During a recent very heavy rain we had a brief leak in the roof at the bridge center requiring buckets. Evidently this happens about once every 18 months during periods of extreme rain. We will notify the landlord that we expect this problem to be repaired as it is his responsibility.
 
The board discussed the issue of the Midwest Monitor pursuant to a request/suggestion from Adrienne Netherwood.  The Midwest Monitor now costs our unit a bit more than $4000 a year.  A motion was made and seconded that our unit propose a motion at the next district board meeting as follows: In the opinion of unit 124 district 11 can no longer afford a printed and mailed newsletter. We would suggest that the newsletter be prepared only in electronic form which would be distributed to each unit for use on their website and for the production of printed copies if they see fit. 
The board recognized the service of Mary Clifton in preparing articles for the Midwest Monitor from our unit. Another member of our unit (Bruce parent) has expressed a desire to prepare these articles in the future and we would like to give him the opportunity.
 
There was discussion about having one or more of the games at the bridge center joined the Common Game. This is a game where for an extra fee the same hands are played at many clubs across the country and a detailed analysis provided to the participants of the game. The discussion is tabled for now.
 
A compensation committee had met recently to discuss and amend the compensation for certain of the jobs required for the smooth running of the bridge center and the unit. The report of that committee had been distributed to the members of the board and a motion was made, seconded and passed to adopt the revised compensation policy. The new policy will be posted on the website.
 
The treasurer’s report had been sent to board members via email and was reviewed briefly. Our policy is to review a condensed version on a monthly basis and to review the financials in detail only once a quarter. It was noted that we have so far had around 10 donations totaling approximately $300 in honor of Dottie Slaughter.
 
The education committee reported that the new format for the Saturday morning game has been very successful. This is a more relaxed supervised play game (not for master points) that runs from 10 AM to noon each Saturday. Both the players and the volunteer members who act as monitors are pleased with this new format. It has been running approximately 4 tables each week. In addition, the education committee showed us a draft of their new learning plan for the bridge center. This plan will include an attempt to better coordinate schedules of those who teach at the bridge center and to initiate 2 new programs during the year. One of the programs would be called “new to duplicate” which will be designed to teach people who have played bridge before what is involved in playing duplicate. The second program would be called “new to bridge” and designed for people who have never played bridge but are interested in learning more about the game. This would be similar to learn bridge in a day but not the exact same program.
 
We discussed the instant matchpoint game to be held nationwide on Wednesday night October 2. Mike Lipp is going to direct the game and the board authorized unspecified funding for the purchase of pizza for this game.
 
Tournament committee.  I can’t read the writing for the 1^st item here. It looks like Mike Lipp coordinator sectional walk later. I need help on this.
The Middletown sectional has now officially been canceled and the tournament committee has dropped it from the unit’s tournament schedule. Northern Kentucky has asked for permission to pick up this sectional starting August 15 and 16^th of 2014. They have made arrangements with the Doubletree Inn at the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky airport to host the event. The northern Kentucky board is willing to take the risk and would like to keep any profits made from the tournament for their capital fund. The tournament committee asked for and received permission to ask Mary Clifton to release whatever money was left in the Middletown sectional fund for the use by northern Kentucky in continuing a sectional that time of year.
 
There was a discussion of whether the bridge center should purchase an AED (automatic electronic defibrillator) to keep in the bridge center. The decision was that we would not do this at this time. There are numbers of issues involved, the most serious being our uncertainty that we could have enough trained people to make the equipment worthwhile and the fear that if it were used improperly we might be subject to legal action.
 
Meeting adjourned at 6:40 pm
 
Potter Orr
recorder