Northern Virginia Bridge Association
Minutes of the Board of Directors
October 21, 2005

The meeting was held downstairs at the Knights of Columbus Hall, Arlington, Virginia, site of the NVBA Sectional. Officers and directors attending were: Leo Cardillo, Margot Hennings, Dale Dallaire, Marjorie Gazzola, John Mason, Eugene Schuyler and Unit Game Chief Director Marshall Kuschner. Ron Kral, Kathryn Kiley and Paul Kreuger were absent. Preliminary discussion started at 5:40 p.m. and President Cardillo called the meeting to order at 6:10 p.m.

Minutes. Margot made a motion to accept the minutes for September 2005, Dale seconded the motion, and the motion carried.

Treasurer's Report.

Financial Reports: Treasurer Dale Dallaire provided the Board with copies of the following reports, which are also available to the Board on Dale's family website:

Members discussed the need for further breakdown of detail in "Other Special Event Expenses", and Dale said that she could probably provide it.(Note: on October 23, Dale emailed this information to members).

Other: Dale will renew the NVBA's liability insurance for officers and directors. This will cost about $500.

President's Report

Goodwill Candidates: President Leo Cardillo proposed two candidates for the newly-established District 6 Goodwill Committee. The board voted to nominate these candidates, who will be honored at the Williamsburg Regional in January.

Conduct and Ethics(C&E) Committees: Leo has many volunteers for unit level and district level C&E committees, and will provide the list to Fred King.

Volunteer Positions: Bob Zier has offered to take over as Unit Game Hospitality Manager until Carole Grob has recovered from surgery. Leo is still handling Thursday night partnerships and could use some extra help at sectionals. We do have several guaranteed partners(G/P's) now. Newsletter Production Manager Julianne Smith will meet soon with outgoing Manager David Milton. Julianne uses MAC desktop publishing software QUARK, so the transition may be somewhat difficult, but manageable. Lucy McCoy will co-ordinate with Julianne.

MABC Representatives: This issue was not discussed at the meeting but in a follow-up email to all Board members, Leo asked Board members to forward their suggestions for candidates to represent District 6 on the MABC Board of Directors.

Beth El Lease: Leo will soon sign a lease with Beth El for two rooms on Thursday evenings for two years, $260 per week for both rooms in 2006, and $280 in 2007. John Mason has been looking for alternate sites if we needed a substitute place for one or two months, and recommended the new Greek Orthodox Church in GlenCarlyn as a possibility. Eugene Schuyler suggested the JCC on Route 236 as another possibility.

Inventory: Leo has installed new shelving in our storage area at Beth El. He found several boxes of 2001 NVBA telephone directories and threw them out.

Marketing with WBL: Leo recently emailed Board members a summary of the results of a WBL publicity/marketing/unit growth meeting he attended on October 16. WBL plans to print and distribute brochures similar to the "trifolds" that were distributed a few years ago in two versions, one for novice players and one for more experienced players. They also proposed daily bulletins at sectionals and advertising sectionals in the Washington Post as additional marketing tools.

Telephone Directories and Membership Database: Leo recently had 110 copies of the NVBA telephone directory printed at Kinko's at a cost of $277, and proposed that we continue to print minimal amounts as we need them. These will be distributed free of charge to NVBA members. Eugene will check on less expensive printing facilities at his company. Ron Kral is working online with Scott Merritt in Nigeria. They expect the new membership database to be ready by Thanksgiving. The Board discussed printing directories directly from the database, but there may be privacy issues which Ron Kral could address.

Player of the Year Language: In June the Board approved changes to the player-of-the-year language and sent it to the WBL. The WBL asked again two months later for our changes. Our recommendations were for the wording "Must be a member in good standing through the competition period and up to the time of the award". The Board also discussed what to do if the winner wasn't eligible, and it was agreed that the award should go to the next highest eligible player.

Vice President's Report

NVBA/WBL 2006 Schedule: Vice President Margot Hennings handed out a draft schedule for 2006 that was the result of a meeting on September 19 with NVBA and WBL representatives. The final version will be two orange double-sided pages and will be available at the holiday party in December. There are 3 closed dates and no Thursday night "KOCH" dates when Beth El is unavailable in the schedule. One known change to this draft version is that events for October 12 and October 19 should be swapped. Also, the June 15 Swiss Teams will be stratified instead of strataflighted. Any further changes must be forwarded to Doug Grove by November 14.

Other Chair Reports

Chief Unit Game Director Marshall Kuschner reported an email from the ACBL allowing clubs to run International Fund games from December 1 through December 10, 2005. There would be an additional $1 per person charge and the fee supports United States teams for international competition. He suggested replacing our unit championship game on December 8 with this game. The Board discussed this scheduling, complicated by a STAC plus Holiday Party on the next week, December 15. It was agreed that Marshall would put the issue to a vote of those attending the December 1 GNT game.

The meeting ended at 7:15 p. m.

Respectfully submitted,

Marjorie Gazzola, Secretary