CBA minutes April 9, 2013
 
Minutes from the last month’s meeting were approved as distributed. In the future the recording secretary (Potter) will distribute a draft by email and wait for approval to post them on the website.
3 priorities review:
1.     New building: no action since the last meeting.
2.     Zero-tolerance (now known as play friendly): posters have been put up at the bridge center.
3.     Membership: JoAnne Earls and Chris Hastie have agreed to do partnerships. They will not be attempting to handle game by game partnership requests and we will continue to refer those requests to the director of the game involved. JoAnne and Chris’s intention is to do a survey and a phone campaign to attempt to link people up for  longer term partnership relationships. We need to change the website to reflect this new effort.
 
Presidents report:
·       We now have a supply of note cards with the CBA logo on them. These are primarily for use as thank you notes from the CBA Board. A supply is available for board members for their judicious use since the cost while not exorbitant is not trivial.
·       Helen Ogle has been investigating both Bridgemates and the dealing machine for her club (Anderson). She had hoped that we might be eligible for some form of discount on the Bridgemates, but that is not the case. Apparently the storage space she has available at her site is not large enough to hold the dealing machine. This did lead to a general discussion about the use of our Duplimate dealing machine. Discussion confirmed the existing informal policy allowing any club within our unit to use the dealing machine subject to availability of time on the machine and their purchase of their own set of Duplimate boards and cards. A motion was made, seconded and passed to authorize up to $200 as reimbursement to Mike Lipp for his assistance in helping Helen Ogle set up bridge mates at the Anderson club if she is interested.
 
Treasurers report:
 
Treas. Susan Wisner reviewed the financial report for the 1st quarter of 2013. The ongoing schedule will be that board members receive a very abbreviated monthly financial report and that only quarterly will we review a more complete version of the financial report. The following items were reviewed as part of the financial report:
·       Table fee income in dollars was up slightly in the 1st quarter compared to the prior year even though the table counts were down. This anomaly is a result of timing issues from the end of 2011.
·       In the 1st quarter of 2013 an expense of $5700 was recognized for depreciation for a portion of the tournament card tables purchased 4 years ago and for a portion of the repainting of the bridge center. Both of these items had been capitalized but depreciation had not been taken in the intervening years. There was substantial discussion about whether or not we should be capitalizing any items. While not totally resolved, the sense was that it would be very unusual for us to capitalize even a major expense. Inclusion of a depreciation expense represents a change from the practice of recent treasurers but since these items had been capitalized in the past, we need to expense those items and that will be done either through the balance of this year or in the next year.
·       Treasure Wisner have had a prolonged discussion with our building owners about the common area maintenance charges that we owe as part of our lease. They had initially insisted that we owed additional monies for 2012 and it turned out that we had in fact overpaid in 2012 and will receive a credit for the overpayment against our April rent.
·       We have received a partial advertising rebate from the ACBL education department and we are pursuing the balance.
·       Treas. was are also provided a report on table count statistics for January February and March. It should be noted, however, that while the numbers are accurate the time periods are not. What we report as table counts for March are actually February numbers. This is necessary because it is well into March before we have actually received the numbers from the sanction holders. In total attendance is down this year as compared to last year with the largest decreases being for the Tuesday and Thursday evening games.
·       Treasure Wisner also reported on a donation received from member Sandy Orr. Her generous donation was split among the following items: in recognition of the work done by Mike Purcell and Phyllis Bishop for Learn Bridge in a Day, a contribution towards the refrigerator upgrade, a contribution in honor of Pres. Stephani’s efforts, a contribution towards reimbursing Tonya for the extra work she will have to do when we host the NAP next fall and finally contribution in honor of the efforts of board member Sonya Wilson.
 
Public space use: AJ moved and Ron Manne seconded the motion to accept the public space use policy as revised as distributed to the board via email. The policy will be posted on the website.
 
Barb Levinson reported on the mentor mentee program. Very few people have signed up so far. Bob Fiske will put out an email blast to encourage more people to sign up.
 
The awards party was a nice evening with 27 tables playing bridge. 18 of the 25 new life masters were there in person to be acknowledged and receive their cups. Photographs of the event are on the website under My CBA: past event photos.
 
Education Committee: Learn bridge in a day: Mike Purcell reported  that of the 27 people who attended only 2 came from our ads in the newspaper so most were from posters of referrals from members. It’s too soon to report any results since the bridge teachers are not starting their lessons for another week or so and we’ve not had a Saturday game since learn bridge in the day. Our costs were very low this year and in addition we did charge a $10 per person entry fee. We are seeing a slow improvement in the Saturday game. Some of Linda Wolber’s students are attending and some of the players who have been attending are now signing up for lessons. Mike said the education committee would like to do a future event tentatively titled Learn Duplicate in a Day. This would be a shorter event and aimed at people who have been playing bridge and would like to know more about the duplicate style.  AJ suggested that the name be changed to “Transition into Duplicate” to avoid confusion with LBIAD.
 
Tournament committee report: AJ reported for the committee that we are moving forward with the NLM sectional but that it has been difficult to market and promote. The Flying Pig Regional is on course and we have been informed that Robert Hartman, the new CEO of ACBL, will be in Cincinnati for 4 days and plans to play at the regional on 2 of those. In addition, past president Sharon Anderson and her husband had such a good time last year that they plan to intend for the entire week. This will be our 1st year for the earlier schedule for the primary games (10 AM and 2:30 PM) and we need to strongly encourage our local players to play multiple sessions.
 
Meeting adjourned at 645