[SBU Board] Fwd: ACBL July District Director Report

[JC Chupack]

FYI...

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: District Nineteen <d19director.acbl at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 12:48 PM
Subject: ACBL July District Director Report
To:


Please share the following with your membership as you wish.

*DISTRICT 19 DIRECTOR REPORT*

*JULY 2020 *



*BOARD OF DIRECTORS ACTIONS*

*Recent actions taken by the ACBL Board of Directors in June and July
include:*

·      The acceptance of a motion to reorganize the Board of Directors.
Implementation of this plan will commence with the election cycle in 2021.
The size of the Board of Directors will gradually be reduced from 25 to 13,
and will be completed by 2024. The 25 Districts presently in place will
continue to exist, and will function as usual. Instead of each district
electing its own member to the Board of Directors, districts will be
combined into regions, designed to be approximately equal in population.
District 19 will be combined with District 18, to form the new Region 13.
Region 13 will have the right to elect one member to the redesigned board.
Our Region’s first election will take place next year, which is when terms
for both existing district directors will expire.

·      The Transition Task Force is reviewing the transfer of “non-core”
functions of the Board of Directors to other groups of people. This
transition process has already begun.

·      A motion to equalize the masterpoints that are paid in all events at
sectionals and regionals, based upon a new formula that will calculate
“Strength of Field” was approved unanimously by the Board. When this is
implemented (not earlier than January 2021, and not until there is a return
to face-to-face play), masterpoints awarded for tournament events will be
based upon a calculation of the difficulty of winning the event, and will
not depend upon the other events taking place at a tournament at the same
time.

·      The Code of Disciplinary Regulations has been revised, to simplify
and to clarify the CDR.

·      For complete minutes of the latest Board of Directors meetings, use
this link:
https://www.acbl.org/about-acbl/administration/board-of-directors/meeting-motions-and-minutes/
The July minutes are not yet posted, but should be available soon.

*Other information of interest:*

*FINANCIAL STATE OF THE ACBL *CoVid19 has caused havoc with the financial
state of the organization. With the cancellation of all in-person
tournaments for the rest of 2020, tournament-related revenues for the ACBL
were reduced to zero, representing about an 8 million dollar loss. However,
between significant expense reductions and added revenues from online play,
the current estimates are that the ACBL will end the year with a surplus of
over 500 thousand dollars. Financial risks that the ACBL currently faces
include the fact that some members are failing to renew existing
memberships, and the fact that online bridge play appears to be in decline
recently.

*CASHLESS PAYMENTS TO CLUBS *To facilitate the speedy payment of funds from
the ACBL to clubs, a cashless payment process has been introduced. This
will avoid delays caused by the mail service. While this has worked easily
in the USA, it has been more difficult to implement in Canada. Management
now reports that this will be available for Canadians very soon.



*ONLINE TASK FORCE *A proposal to allow districts and units to offer online
regionals and sectionals was turned down by the Board of Directors in May,
for a number of reasons. Soon thereafter, a special task force was formed
to examine issues related to online bridge play, including the idea of
facilitating the offering of locally-based regionals and sectionals. This
task force is considering the ways in which online play might be integrated
with face-to-face bridge, once in-person clubs and tournaments return. The
Board of Directors will receive and discuss a report from this Online Task
Force over the course of several days in August.

*TEMPORARY MEMBERSHIP ON THE WAY *A new temporary membership will be
available for free to new members very soon (probably by the beginning of
August). The previous program of Guest Memberships will be phased out, once
the new program is available.

*SPECIAL EVENT PLANS *Special monthly ACBL-wide events will continue to be
planned until significant in-person play has resumed. These are tentatively
planned to include regionally rated events in August, October and December,
special NABC Knock-Out and Pairs events in July and November, a Virtual
Youth NABC in July, another Silver Linings event in September, and other
opportunities for upgraded masterpoints in September on Labour Day, during
Club Appreciation Week, and during Club Championship Weeks in September and
November.



*VIRTUAL CLUBS *Some ACBL policies have caused difficulties for virtual
clubs in parts of the ACBL. Among the issues under contention are the
restrictions for the number of guest players a club may allow in their
games and the fact that guest pairs are not allowed to play with each other
in clubs they may visit. Both players and clubs in some locations have
indicated a desire for more choice. We have been told to expect that there
will be some loosening of these restrictions in the future.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me.

Julie Smith    District19Director at acbl.org or d19director.acbl at gmail.com


-- 
JC Chupack
* Seattle ACBL Unit 446 <http://www.bridgeinseattle.org> President,
Web/Email Admin, & Publicity Chair
* Lead Technical Product Manager, Zulily <http://www.zulily.com>, Inc.
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