Minutes of Unit 174 Board Meeting 

 

November 5, 2007

Bridge Studio of Houston

 

CALL TO ORDER

 

The board meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m.  Members present were:  Bert Onstott, Pres., Jolie Hess, Vice Pres., Karen Nimmons, Sec., Ed Groner, John Erickson, Jo Dene Bond, Lauri Laufman.  Also present were Jim Woodward, Treas., and guest Barbara LaVigne, Chairman of the Nominating Committee.

 

GUESTS

 

Barbara LaVigne presented to the board the slate of candidates preparing to run for the board of directors of Unit 174. They are: Karen Nimmons, Joyce Ryan, Joyce Gore, Paul Cuneo, August Birke and Nicholas Rasmussen. She passed around pictures and bios of the new candidates.  MOTION:  was made to approve the slate of candidates.  It was seconded and approved.

 

MINUTES OF OCTOBER BOARD MEETING

 

MOTION:  was made to approve the minutes of the October Board Meeting.  It was seconded and approved.

 

TREASURER’S REPORT

 

Since no money will be coming in until the February Regional, Jim recommended he pull some money out of the existing CDs to cover the upcoming holiday parties that various clubs will be holding. The board saw no problem with this.  He reviewed the financial statements.  MOTION:  was made to approve the financial statements as written.  It was seconded and approved.

 

Jim also shared a letter he received from David Miller & Company, our auditors, telling us about what they considered to be an internal control deficiency in the way our accounts are handled.  Bert agreed to ask Norm Gautier for advice on how to deal with it.

 

COMMITTEE REPORTS

 

Awards/Flyers – Lauri

 

Lauri reported all flyers have gone out for the upcoming LSR.  The plaques for the new Life Masters have been ordered and the awards for the Mini McKinney and Ace of Clubs need to be ordered.  They will be given out in April.

 

Bridge in Schools – Bert

 

Bert reported he taught KIPP High School students during their October intersession.  He used Mini-Bridge and the classes seemed to go well.  They asked us to repeat during the January intersession.  Joan Pleason will teach the class in January.

 

Communications Committee – Bert (for Betty Freedman)

 

Betty reported that some of her committee members are having difficulties following through with phone calls and she may need a few replacements.

 

Pro-Am Tournament – Bert

 

Bert reported that things seemed to go well.  There were a total of 44 ˝ tables.  Fred Feigley and Evelyn James won overall with a 67.82% game and they were each  presented with their trophy on Sunday during the October Sectional.

 

Membership – Bert

 

Bert reported membership is up 12 to 2332.  During the past 12 months, membership has gone up by 61, or 2.7%.  The trend seems to be solidly upward.

 

Fund Raising – Jolie

 

No news to report other than Randall’s has $18.00 in the account and they will send in a check when the amount increases.

 

I/N, Education and Book Sales – Joyce

 

No report as Joyce was absent.

 

NAP/GNT – Ed

 

Flights A&C were held at the Bridge Studio last Sunday and Ed reported there were 21 pairs in flight A and 17 in flight C.  He noted attendance was up. Sue Williams directed and the games ran smoothly. Flight B will be held Nov. 18 at Bridge Club of Houston. Ed also reported that February 17 will be the date for the upcoming GNT games.  He proposed a letter to the board to be presented to Sue Williams for her club to host the game.

 

Stac and Goodwill – Karen

 

Karen reported there were 17 clubs which had 591 tables participating in the Stac Games and the Unit netted a profit of $966.84.  Attendance was down from the previous game. She also reported no cards went out for Goodwill.

 

Supplies – John

 

John reported everything seems to be in order. Gulf Coast Parcel consolidated our space at the warehouse but that posed no problem.  The board talked about implementing a program to keep track of the boards that need new playing cards.

 

Tournament Coordination – Pat

 

No report as Pat was absent.

 

OLD BUSINESS

 

October Sectional – JoDene/John

 

The table count was up 42 tables from last year.

 

JoDene reported she was not happy with the snack bar catering service.  They were unprofessional and did not show up on time.

 

The tournament directors recommended that we play just 8 boards a round on Sunday. They said many unit sectionals are going this route so John and JoDene agreed. We agreed not to do this in the future.

 

There were not enough caterers serving the food on Sunday so the line moved extremely slowly.  Other than that, the food received favorable reviews from the players.

 

April Sectional – Karen/Lauri

 

Karen passed around the budget for the tournament.  MOTION:  was made to approve the April Sectional budget as written.  It was seconded and approved.

 

2008 Lone Star Regional – Bert/Jolie

 

·         Ira Hessel has a copy of our ad to be displayed on a full page in both the Nov/Dec and Jan/Feb issue of the ScoreCard.

·         Flyers have been printed and distributed.

·         Dianna Gittelman hopes to complete the door prize/ad solicitation by the end of November.

·         Wanda Meyer will sell the gift entry sales.  Bert has printed and delivered 54 entries for her to sell.

·         Bert is looking for a volunteer to print personalized entry labels with the player’s ACBL number, city and state on them. He said it only takes about two minutes to do a page once you are set up. The only thing that is time consuming is verifying the member’s ACBL number. The volunteer should be computer savvy and has Microsoft Publisher, which is the easiest tool to use, though Word would also work. Volunteers should contact Bert.

·         Five named events have been sold so far.

·         Lynda Paukune has agreed to organize both the Teacher-I/N reception and the volunteer reception.  Bert proposed she be given the $500.00 the unit has budget for the two events to spend.

·         Bert passed around two letters he proposes to send out to ACBL CEO Jay Baum and ACBL President Dan Morse. He asked the board to look them over and to submit corrections.

·         Bert passed around diagrams of how he suggests the Grand Pavilion, Grand Foyer and the Richmond and Briarpark room be set up for the tournament. We are likely to be squeezed for space this year.

·         Bert and Jolie have a meeting with the hotel regarding hospitality, the Sunday meal and the District breakfast November 8th at 10:30pm.

 

On-Line Partnership Desk – John

 

There was no news from John.  Roll out is tentatively planned for January 2008.

 

NEW BUSINESS

 

 

Review Sectional Tournament Planning Section of Unit Procedures Manual – All

 

The board did this and made a few changes.

 

Next Meeting Dates – All

 

The future dates of the Board of Directors meetings are:  December 3, 2007, January 14, 2008, February 11, 2008, March 3, 2008 and April 7, 2008.  Again, all are welcome to attend.

 

EXECUTIVE SESSION

 

The board met in executive session for 15 minutes.

 

ADJOURN

 

Motion:  was made to adjourn the meeting.  It was seconded and approved.  The meeting was adjourned at 10:07 pm.

 

 

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,

Karen Nimmons, Secretary