The National Board met
the first week of March in conjunction with the Pittsburgh NABC
tournament.
Roger Smith, from
Sacramento, California, the newly elected President of ACBL, presided over the
meeting.
The ACBL Marketing
department is planning an extensive program to promote bridge to junior players
and bridge in schools.
Special Games at
Clubs: Beginning January 1, 2005
Any and all ACBL
sanctioned sessions may be held as a Junior Fund game, Charity game or
International Fund game, except February is reserved for Junior Fund
games, April is reserved for Charity games and September is reserved for
International Fund games.
The masterpoint rating
for Charity games, International Fund Games and Club Appreciation Pair games
(October) is increased to 100% Sectional Black points. (Junior Fund games were previously at 100%
black points.)
These special games are
available to clubs the entire year and cost to the players is$1 additional per
session. Some Clubs have raised their
normal session fee by this$1 and hold 100% Sectional Black point games all
year.
As Chairman of the Junior
Committee to the National board, I have long felt that money raised from Junior
Fund events were being used primarily to finance a very small number of junior
players who compete internationally. I
presented a motion to the board to limit these funds to $50,000 each year and
that the International Junior competition be turned over to the USBF. This motion was passed, so beginning in
2006, junior funds will target a younger “junior” with more programs in schools
and camps for juniors to promote bridge.
A motion to require all
Units to have at least 50 members was withdrawn by management. This certainly does not apply to District 9,
but many of the Districts in the West have very small units. The feeling of the board was that as long as
the Unit was active and carrying out the objectives set forth for Units, size
should not be a criteria.
We should not lose sight
of how fortunate we are to live in District 9 where we can easily drive to nine
(9) Regional tournaments in 2005. The
total membership as of March 1, 2005 in District 9 was 17,277. The total membership in all of ACBL is
150,554. We have close to 11 ˝% of all
ACBL members living here in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Keep in touch and I look
forward to seeing you at tournaments this year.