Minutes of Unit 174 Board Meeting

January 2, 2007

5329 McCulloch Circle

Marsha Bernstein’s home

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm. Board members present were Norm Gautier, Pres., Bert Onstott, VP, Bobbi Kauffman, Joyce Ryan, Jo Dene Bond, Jolie Hess, Marsha Bernstein, Ed Groner, Karen Nimmons, Secretary and Jim Woodward, Treasurer.

MINUTES OF DECEMBER MEETING

MOTION: was made to approve the minutes. Was seconded and approved.

TREASURER’S REPORT

The unit remains in good financial condition.
MOTION: to approve checks numbered 2326-2346 and item #102. It was seconded and approved.
50 entries (certificates) to the Lone Star Regional have been sold. The board reviewed an original certificate and also looked at a copy of one. Copies have the wording “unauthorized” throughout the face of the certificate. In other words, if anyone tried to copy an entry, the word “unauthorized” would appear throughout the face of the certificate, making it void.

LONE STAR REGIONAL PLANNING SESSION

· Joyce

Anne Page, Barbara and Joe Nance have volunteered to staff the I/N desk. Joyce has asked Marsha to help organize a New Players Services committee to help the new players.
Joyce has all the speakers lined up. The “Pro Bowl” speakers will be Betty Starzec, Sharon Fairchild, Barbara Phillips, Bill Baker, Dave Glandorf for noon sessions and John Zilic, Chris Compton, George Pisk, Mike Passell, Mike Huston, and an unannounced speaker for the evening sessions.
Thirty-two people have signed up the new TAP class. E-mails have been sent out to the 174 existing teachers notifying them of the new class.
Joyce would like some help with the Friday night reception and Marsha volunteered.

· Marsha

Marsha has nothing to report at this time. As the Regional draws closer, she will do the purchasing for the Volunteer Reception.

· Jolie

Jolie said she will have all the volunteers lined up soon for the partnership desk.

· Dianna Gittelman

Dianna wasn’t there, but in a letter to Norm she requested that the companies donating large door prizes be given special recognition and that all donors be listed by name, address and telephone number in all daily bulletins.

· Karen

Karen reported she has not started on recruiting volunteers for the Hospitality Desk and will start on that pronto. She also said she will be the only person responsible for handing out the prizes. The prizes will only be the $2.00 bills. There will be no choice between anything. There will be no need to decorate, except in the I/N area.

· Sandy Stevens

Sandy was not present, but in a letter requested that the caddies get paid to help set up. The board agreed. The board also agreed to continue giving the caddies one $1.00 coupon for each shift they work.

· Bobbi

The pencils came in. The pencil clips have been ordered. The convention cards and the stickers are here and all will be ready to be given out as registration gifts. Karen will need to pick them up.

· Norm and Bert

$1450.00 has been collected in Named Events so far. The board agreed that the Unit would name events for Jack Mehrens and Doris Allen.
Norm could not get a room pick-up count. He will try again soon.
A Clean Up Committee is needed to help recruit volunteers to stay afterwards.
The pre-tournament meeting will be Feb. 2 at 10:00 a.m. at the Marriott Hotel. This will give everyone a chance to meet the hotel staff.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Awards/Fund Raising/Flyers - Marsha

The plaques are up to date.
Fliers to the Regional went out to Reno and Lake Geneva and all the local clubs.
Marsha had nothing new to report on awards.

Communications Committee – Norm

Norm reported the committee is still effective and has nothing new to report at this time.

I/N, Education, Book Sales – Joyce

Sue Williams is considering adding a newcomer or an I/N game to her Tuesday Sugarland game.
Lynne Graham will receive 81 books this Friday. Joyce said there should be enough books on hand for the January semester. She contacted Julie Greenburg regarding the new books and she reported that the new bidding books are in the process of being printed. The new play of the hand will most likely not be ready until late spring or summer. The defense and convention books will be revised when Baron Barclay runs out of the old books, so she doesn’t foresee they will be revised and reprinted any time soon.

NAP/GNT – Ed

GNT fliers have been given out to most clubs and Marsha will mail the rest to the other clubs.
Kevin Perkins has been sent an e-mail regarding the GNT. He will be the DIC.

Regarding the NAP, Ed said a large number of qualifiers will be going to Austin to compete in the North American Pairs.
The Board agreed to sponsor the next Unit NAP qualifying games, and approved the solicitation of bids from existing clubs within the unit that have adequate facilities, for a location. Ed will prepare an invitation to bid and send to the clubs that were deemed to have adequate facilities. Those clubs are—Bridge and Games Studio, Bridge Club of Houston, and Conroe Bridge Center.

STaC – Karen

Karen sent out four cards to various members in the Unit.
All the hand records for the upcoming Stac games have been sent out. The board discussed how the various clubs need to properly seed the field. Karen said a special note goes out to the club managers/owners reminding them of this.

Supplies – Bobbi

Bobbi had nothing new to report on supplies other than what she said in the Regional Planning Session.

Tournament Coordination – Jolie

Jolie contacted Teresa Cole at the Shriners and was told that Teresa does not know of anything definite. Someone did offer to buy the property but nothing is in writing at this time. Our dates with them for 2007 should be secure. She would not commit to 2008. Even though we have contracts with them for 2008, Jolie recommended the board start investigating new locations.
She sent a list of the local championship and charity games to all the clubs.

Membership/Directory – Bert

Bert reported he has yet to receive a January update from the ACBL on membership.
He is selling ads for the directory. So far, Speedy Printing, Eric Snow, Sandy Jackson, AlanWolf, Beechnut Professional Pharmacy, and Donna and Chris Compton have purchased one.
He has a new list of unit members.
He created a draft of the directory and sent it out for review and comment. He reported it about ready to go to print. The board discussed the final outcome of the new directory and decided not to spend the extra money on binding. MOTION: was made to have the new directories just printed, drilled and collated and to be used in the present notebook. Was seconded and approved.
Decided to have 1600 copies made.

Bridge in Schools – Bert

· KIPP

There will be 10 classes in the various middle schools, a total of over 100 students.
They are using the EasyBridge curriculum again.
All the teachers are lined up. They are Mauvelyene Henry, Carolyne Fox, Bill St. Clair, Barbara Phillips, Lesly Van Dam and Bonnie Boyd.
The board approved Carolyn Fox as the new Chairman of Bridge in Schools, replacing Bert.

· YES

One of the YES college prep schools wants to have bridge offered as part of their ‘clubs’ program. This is an hour twice a week after school. Participation in the clubs program isn’t optional, but the students can choose which clubs they sign up for.
Sharon Osborne declined to support this, as she has arranged with a foundation called the League to administer the funds Gates and Buffet set aside for the Bridge in Schools program. Will have more to report next month.

OLD BUSINESS

February Regional – Norm & Bert

Everything is in the Lone Star Regional Planning Session

April Sectional – Ed & Joyce

Nothing new to report.

June Sectional – Jolie

Karen Nimmons volunteered to co-chair the event.
The schedule has been approved by Memphis.

Updates on Initiatives

· 0-20 MP subsidized games – Joyce

There was nothing new to report

· Zero Tolerance – Bert

The board talked about how to put in the rest of the “smiley faces” in the bidding boxes for the Regional. Bert agreed to write a short article for the daily bulletin about the smiley faces.

Hotel Negotiations – Norm

Norm had nothing new to report at this time.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

The board met in executive session for approximately 5 minutes.

NEW BUSINESS

Scorecard

Board members were reminded that the cut-off date for the Scorecard is early January and Karen was asked to get the minutes out early so they can be forwarded to Anne.

Future Board Meeting Dates

The board will next meet February 12, March 5, April 9 and May 7 in 2007. No further dates were discussed.

ADJOURN

The meeting was adjourned at 10:15pm. The next board meeting will be on February 12. All are welcome to attend.

Respectfully Submitted,

Karen Nimmons, Secretary