Fort Collins Duplicate Players Club

Board Meeting Minutes

March 4, 2009

Present: Ron Alexander, Beth McGregor, Mark Spaeth, Liz Varra, Doug Watt, Marge Webster,

John Worley

Board Members:

New members: Mark, Liz and Marge

Continuing: Ron, Beth and John

Officers elected: President-John, VP-Beth, Secretary-Ron

New Location?

Noise level is biggest complain about current location. A location more central to club members homes (South and East?) is also desired by some. Current rental cost is $50/week; insurance is $350/year (transferable to different location). Based on last year’s efforts to relocate from Elks, it may be doubtful we could find a new, more central location that would meet our requirements (e.g., storage for tables and supplies, good lighting, reasonable rental fee, assurance that club would not be preempted by an in-house program/meeting)

Action items

John: determine central location based on club member’s addresses

Marge: follow-up on potential locations she identified

Seeding

This is a issue with some club members. Seeding might insure that C players generally play the same number of boards against A players and that A players have the challenge of playing against other A players.

Conclusions: Howell movements generally don’t require seeding . The Director can move players if he feels that there is an unbalance. Any club member can mention a seeding concern to the director prior to play.

Set-up

Set-up has generally been done by only a few. It is recognized that many are prevented from helping because of physical ability, work schedule and/or uncertainty about whether they are going to play on a given Wednesday.

Conclusions: Set-up is not taking all that long and start time for set-up will be moved from 5:45 to 6 pm--others always pitch in with set-up when they arrive. Only one person needs to sign-up--if that person is a “no show,” early arrivals will have to do set-up.

Slow Play

Slow play at pairs is all too often a problem--sometimes by newer players, sometimes by experienced players. The penalty for slow play should be determined by the Board; the enforcement is done by the director (usually after the 2^nd slow play). The Board did not suggest that newer players be given leeway before being penalized for slow play, but we also don’t newer players to feel unwelcome.

Action item: John and Mark to discuss slow-play penalty with Larry Mason and then make a proposal to the board.

Zero Tolerance policy

Although “behavior” is generally thought to have improved over the past few years, there are still those who consistently make rude comments to partner/opponents and make unsolicited comments about bidding and play to opponents, often in a derogatory manner. Players are often reluctant to call the director.

Action items:

Liz: Within next couple of weeks, propose “behavior” announcement(s) that will be made prior to games. Get agreement from Board Members to proposals via e-mail. Liz will make the first announcement; Liz or other Board Members will make announcements at subsequent games.

All Board Members: e-mail Liz with suggestions and points to be covered

Board assembly

There have been some instances where the hands do not match the hand records. Uncertain of the error level.

Action item: Club members should bring errors to attention of Director

There has always been debate about the randomness of “computer dealt” hands and some are interested in knowing more about the programs/methods used.

Action item: John will talk with Jon Gustafson to get better understanding of how hands are generated.

Mentor games on 5^th Wednesday

The pairing of Life Masters with Non-Life Masters on the fifth Wednesday has been successful and will continue.

Our bank account has $2,753.00 and cash on hand is $316.00.