[SBU Board] District Meeting 2019 Notes

[Eric Sieg]

Hi all,


I took some notes during the Spring meeting which I wanted to share below:


*Spring 2019 Board Meeting Notes*



Discussion of the Kirkwood Trophy: It is large, broken down, and people are
unexcited about taking it home. Various discussion about what to do with
it, concluded with trying to convert it to an online thing on the district
website.



Presentation from Tim on GNT and NAP events. Our team #s have been
increasing past years, although it might dip this year due to a possible
drop for B/Open due to the location. NAPs will be in BC this year on Oct 12
and 13 at a new location (Delta BC). There was some issue with A pairs last
year. One pair didn’t make up their mind quickly enough and by the time
they decided not to go, Tim couldn’t find another pair who could go. He
went down the top 8ish names but it was such late notice (especially
towards the end) that plans were already made. We did not end up sending a
3rd pair to As as a result.



Recently the National Board made a change so that B and C flights for GNTs
could send 2 teams if 8+ teams played in the district final. We initially
had 8 for Cs, but one team didn’t make it so there were only 7. We hit 8
teams for Bs though so two teams (including one Seattle team, congrats
Ann!) will be going from D19 for B.



As a board, we voted to send and also subsidize the 2nd place teams when we
have sufficient entrants to allow a 2nd team to go. We currently subsidize
1st place at 2k per team (paid entirely from district $) and voted to
subsidize 2nd place at $1200. This is in line with NAP amounts that are
also 300 per person ($600 per pair) for 2nd place.



Another question was the GNT surcharge that the district adds and clubs are
supposed to remit to the district. Currently, any GNT game is supposed to
collect $4 per table and send it to the district. However, its a hassle and
not all clubs are submitting the money. The GNT Coordinator has to spend a
lot of time and effort following up with clubs. This surcharge can also be
hard on clubs who are strapped for $ but don’t want to upset players who
dislike paying extra. Given that the total annual remittances are only $500
to $600 per year, Tim made a motion that we do away with the surcharge.
This was seconded and passed unanimously.



There was also some discussion of issues with recent GNTs. Two years ago
there was a serious behavioral issue that nearly got us kicked out of
Everett. This year, there was a problem with one team playing extremely
slowly throughout the event. As a result, the GNT finished well after the
regular event and overran the rental agreement for the site which cost
extra money. Despite multiple complaints by players about the speed of this
team, no action was taken. There was some discussion of building in a time
limit into the conditions of contest in the future to combat this sort of
problem. High level KO events have a time limit and can have slow play
penalties, it seems like providing a similar limit for GNT qualifiers would
be appropriate. It isn’t fair to people who don’t get a full lunch break or
have to stay much later than normal just because one team doesn’t play at a
normal tempo. Its unlikely anything will be done for the GNTs this weekend,
but hopefully we can build something into the CoCs for next year.



There was also some discussion of cell phone penalties. Currently there is
no clear policy because the ACBL has not provided such and we don’t have it
built into the conditions of contest. My suggestion was that they should
mirror the policies for regional events as this is a regional event that
pays gold points. Tim wanted to take a more collaborative approach and try
to mirror whatever Everett does. Regardless of the final rule, hopefully
there will be something built into the conditions of contest in the future
to make it clear.



There was some discussion of flyer costs for tournaments. Mistakes were
made for the Whistler tournament and as a result we spent far more than we
should have. There were also questions around how effective flyers in the
ACBL bulletin are. BBO and Bridgewinners are much cheaper and probably have
a better return on investment. I personally think a flyer for Penticton and
Victoria still make sense given the destination regional status and how it
pulls in people from all over the country, but for more local/commuter
style regionals like Lynnwood I’m not sure it makes sense to advertise in
the bulletin.



In Memphis, a unit member gave me a flyer from the Cincinnati regional with
the comment that it looked amazing and really stuck out. In addition, the
schedule was really interesting and a lot more appealing for people who
work given the horizontal evening events. I shared the flyer via email and
handed it around at the meeting. While nothing concrete could happen there,
my hope is that we can learn from what Cincinnati has done and make a more
appealing flyer and event schedule. I don’t think we have time to do
anything for Lynnwood this year, but there’s hope (imo) for Lynnwood next
year. The ACBL also recently voted to increase masterpoint awards for 4
session regional events (other than KOs) 60% which makes two day pair
events a lot more appealing. Cincinnati has a two day pairs event on their
schedule, and something like that might be cool for Lynnwood in the future.



People sometimes ask or complain about lack of hospitality at the regional
sites. This is because it is frequently exorbitantly expensive to provide.
For example, at Victoria in order to have coffee at the playing site it
must come from the Empress per the rules and they charge $5 per cup of
coffee. Walk downstairs and players can buy it for a tiny fraction of that
cost at a store (the Liberty Cafe) in the same building.



There was some confusion around STACs this year. As a district, we decided
to leave the Western STAC because all the money was going to CA instead of
benefitting D19 and do a combined D19/D20 STAC instead. However, there were
some mistakes made with that transition and many club owners and members
weren’t aware of the change. Also, with the much smaller STAC, the rewards
for a good game were lower. While the idea of trying to keep the money in
the district is a good one, there was a lot of negative feedback. Its
unclear what the plan is going forward, but it sounds like we’ll probably
continue to run D19/D20 STACs but try not to overlap them with Western
STACs in the future. Then clubs can make their own decisions about which to
join (if any).



There was some discussion of the Seattle sectional at Sea. In theory, the
ACBL is supposed to check with the tournament coordinator for the region.
In practice, they don’t. They are unit 250 and district 99 and have their
own approvers and generally operate independently of everyone else. While
the timing is a pretty huge annoyance, Matt Koltnow felt that the impact on
our sectional would be limited because the audience is so different. The
people he sees at these cruise tournaments have very little overlap with
people who play regular tournaments. The director is coming from Florida
and most come in from the travel agency and are inexperienced players. The
awards are also reduced and are almost like a club game as opposed to being
full sectional rating.


Steve Bates recently announced his resignation with very little notice at
the beginning of Memphis. As a result, Penticton staffing got thrown for a
loop and we’re paying a lot to import a director from Toronto instead of
one closer to home. The feeling is that the person making those decisions
(who lives in Canada) has a strong preference for Canadian directors as
opposed to pulling from across the border. That might be acceptable if
getting a fabulous director like Matt Smith, but in this instance that
wasn’t the case. This was a pretty big disservice to our district, but its
unclear what we can do about it at this point. Hopefully we can express a
strong preference for closer directors going forward.



It’s unclear if there will be more resignations like Steve’s in the near
future.



I asked about the possibility of continuing to use Nick Tipton in the
future even though he resigned from being a part time director after he
lost medical benefits. One possible avenue might be hiring him as a
“tournament assistant”. In theory this is for smaller/easier tasks, but we
might be able to more fairly compensate Nick while still benefitting by
avoiding the costs of a more distant director. Something to consider
exploring going forward, especially if it sounds like we might have to pay
noticeable travel for someone far away for a Seattle sectional.



Vegas rooms are going quickly, with 1/3 disappearing on the first day.
There are also complications for things like the collegiates with the many
hotels including the Cosmo enforcing a 21+ age limit.



We heard a presentation from Anne Farmer. While there was some frustration
with her lack of preparation, the feeling was that the mission is good even
if the messenger frustrated people. Anne asked for $2300 from the district,
assuming a similar $2300 donation from the Seattle unit even though she had
not yet approached the Seattle unit. She has 6 kids with financial need and
thinks they need $800 each for 3 days in Vegas. This is significantly
higher than I expect to pay per day in Vegas and my entry fees aren’t free.
Flights are $150 and rooms/food aren’t going to be that insane once you
account for sharing rooms.



There was also some question as to the point of sending kids to the Youth
NABC. Why not do stuff locally? In addition, one board member commented
that kids are a waste because they don’t stick. They eat a lot of
investment and then quit when they get older. I spoke to my experience in
Slovakia getting to meet a bunch of other juniors being a hugely impactful
difference for me. In addition, provided some counter examples of some
younger players who did stick. One great example was Greg Herman.



The board decided to set aside up to $1000 to match whatever the Seattle
unit decides to fund for kids going to the Youth NABC. They felt that the
Seattle unit was in the best position to vet the money and wanted our help
with that, hence putting the money only as a match. There was also some
frustration with the fact that SNGB hasn’t done much at local tournaments
and they wanted to see more local events for them as well. That’s something
that both the unit and SNGB can do better at and hopefully we’ll be able to
have more events for youth at tournaments in the future. The district can
also do a better job (in my opinion) of offering youth events and then
working with local units and organizations to drive attendance to those
events.



We then received the financial report. Unlike the bankrupt status the
district had in the distant past, we are currently sitting well
financially. Every tournament for the last two years has made money and we
currently have over $300k in assets.



When discussing tournament schedules, it isn’t clear if/when we’ll be going
back to Olympia. It was very lightly attended last time. While there was a
desire to see people in that area served, some felt that the Vancouver WA
regional did that. One possibility I didn’t float because I wasn’t sure
about timing/etc would be a Tacoma Regional at the Tacoma convention
center. Multiple MTG tournaments were held there and it seems like a nice
venue that would be a lot closer to Olympia while still being more
reasonable for Seattle and potentially getting large Seattle attendance as
well.



One interesting issue is cash deposit issues, where banks want to charge us
money to deposit cash. We discussed various solutions and depositing to a
personal account (followed by a check from that person) seems like a
workable solution for the time being. As a player, I would love to see
tournaments move away from cash entries and instead buy them online.



Purple pass is gone. There is a replacement, but it doesn’t work in Canada.
Current plan is to just use Square. It sounds like Bridgewinners might
start servicing regionals, but not sure when and how it will work or cost
and if it will work in Canada.



Back when Don Mamula was on the board, he was very concerned about a
“Washington gaming tax”. A comment was made that Don was a stickler for
rules that cost the district money. After voluntarily paying this
questionable (if it applies) tax for the last ~6 years, a variety of people
familiar with tax law in WA said we shouldn’t be paying it. However, since
we have been paying it - its unclear if stopping might trigger some sort of
audit or other problem. We currently pay roughly $2k per year of this
questionable tax. The decision was made to try to get legal help to get a
ruling confirming we don’t need to pay it as long as the costs for the
legal help in that don’t exceed $2000. If we can get that ruling, we might
also be able to receive some of the money (last 5 year’s worth) we’ve been
sending in. No guarantee that it will work, but as a district board we felt
it was worth risking $2k once in order to potentially save $2k annually.



We were asked for goodwill committee nominees, I nominated David Dailey as
I think he’s a great person for bridge in our area. Tim strongly backed
that nomination.



Similarly, we were asked for people who might be good candidates to serve
on the NABC Tournament Conduct Committee. I nominated Jeff Ford and later
confirmed that he would be willing to serve. Tim strongly backed this
nomination as well.



As I was leaving to catch the clipper, there was a final discussion about
entry fees. The board decided to stay at 14 US and 15 Canadian for
regionals.



That completes my summary of the meeting. One impression that I have had
that I’m not sure how best to address is that it feels like the district
has a slight Canadian bias. Entry fees are 20% cheaper (after exchange
rate) in Canada, we budget more for hospitality for CA tournaments than US
(4$ per table vs 3$, significantly bigger difference than the entry fee
difference), and people have expressed concerns about fairness with multi
level event scheduling - especially Victoria this Spring and then Vancouver
for NAPs this fall. My understanding is that both district meetings are in
Canada as well this year. I don’t have any huge plans or suggestions at
this time, but its something I’m becoming cognizant of and I hope I can
find ways to gently push for the interests of our Seattle contingent in
order to keep things fair.



Please let me know if you have concerns, ideas, etc. I’m still new to this
district board thing, so very much interested in hearing from others if
there are ways I can represent their interests at the district level.



Thanks!



Eric
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