ACBL Director's Report
ACBL Director's ReportI would like
to extend my condolences to the friends and family of Jim Pelletier. Jim passed
away last month and he will be greatly missed by the bridge world. He had been
the chairman of the Fort Wayne Regional for some years now and worked tirelessly
to make the tournament a success. He had just been elected president of his unit
and would have been joining the District 8 Board at the St. Louis meeting. We
will miss him.
Grand National Teams: On a happier note, the District 8 Flight C team won
their flight in the finals of the Grand National Teams in Las Vegas.
Congratulations to Thomas O’Reilly-Pol, Jonathan Goldberg, Debbie Romero and
Sandy Biggs. All four District 8 teams made it through the qualifying round to
the second day, which was great. It's never too soon to be making plans for your
team for next year. We have found a new site for the district finals, which
should resolve some of the issues we have had with the two prior sites we have
been using. The new site (the Eagles Club, just east of the IDOT Building) is
bigger, well-lit, and has convenient parking. The 2009 District finals will be
May 2 and 3, 2009. The national finals will be at the Summer NABC in Washington
D.C.
Las Vegas Board of Directors meetings: I think the biggest news from the
board meeting is the change in the requirements to make Life Master. If you are
a member of the ACBL as of December 31, 2009 and you do not let your membership
lapse, you will only have to meet the old requirements. However, if you are
not a member as of December 31, 2009 -- or if you ever let your membership
lapse -- the requirements will be: 500 total points, of which at least 50
must be gold or platinum, 50 of which must be red, gold or platinum, 75 of which
must be silver and 75 of which must be black.
Jerry Fleming was elected President of the ACBL for 2009. He was unopposed.
Jerry has been the ACBL treasurer for the past five years or so and has served
on the ACBL Charity Foundation Board of Trustees with me. He will do a fine job
as president.
If a District or Unit is sponsoring a Sectional-Tournament-at-Clubs during a
week in which there is an ACBLwide game, clubs may now hold the STAC game
instead of the ACBLwide game. This was not allowed under the prior conditions of
contest.
One of the most heated issues at this meeting was a motion to turn over all
appeals at the NABC to director panels. Currently, appeals in the NABC+ events
are heard by appeals committees and appeals from the other events are heard by
director panels. The motion was defeated 13-12.
A motion to create a new NABC event, the Platinum Pairs, was deferred to the
fall meeting. Entry into the event would require winning some minimum number of
platinum points within the past X number of x years. The reason for deferral was
that no one has figured out when the event should be held. The consensus was
that it was an interesting event, but that we would need to know how it would
affect the current schedules for the NABCs before we could make a decision.
Item 033-31, NABC Entry Fees, was rescinded. This item read: “Of the NABC entry
fee increases, 25% of the per table increase will be directed toward the per
table fee to locals.” This was not an attempt to limit the amount of money
provided to the locals for hospitality. I truly believe this item only referred
to the increase passed immediately before it, so that rescinding it was
unnecessary. But by rescinding it, we made it clear that the amount paid to the
locals could be increased without an increase in the NABC entry fee, and that
certain tournaments with higher hospitality costs could be given additional
funding.
The deadline for entering the Reisinger Teams has been extended to two hours
prior to game time. The old requirements were that you had to register your team
the evening before the event. The ACBL staff requested this as two hours is all
the time they need to set up the event.
These are only the high points from the meeting. I would refer you again to the
report by Board member Jonathan Steinberg if you would like more detail:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jonathan.st/board082.html
I hope to see many of you at our upcoming regionals in St. Louis and Fort Wayne.
-- Georgia Heth
If you have questions or suggestions about ACBL Board actions or other bridge matters, please contact me at gkheth@hotmail.com or 917 S. Main St., Morton IL 61550-2419