Minutes

                                    Unit 143 Board Meeting

                                        January 10, 2007

(Approved Feb 21, 2007) 

President John Samsel called the meeting to order at 7:00pm. Present were Donna Pedrotti, Jennifer Luner, Sasanka Ramanadham, Sheryl Finkenstadt, Mark Ludwig, Ed Hale, and Bob Wheeler. Absent were Mary Hruby, Suzi Shymanski-Moore, Jane Ettelson and Steve Zenk.

December Minutes

Sheryl Finkenstadt motioned and Donna Pedrotti seconded motion to approve the December minutes. The motion was approved.

Corresponding Secretary's Report

An EXCEL spreadsheet has been created for the 2007 Player of the Year (POTY) standings using the new procedure approved by the Unit 143 Board. Since no In/Out Reports were received, the Unit 143 data based remains unchanged from December 8, 2006. Sanctions for the April-December 2007 Unit games have been received from ACBL. Results of the Unit 143 October election, unit board's election of officers and board assignments have been submitted to ACBL. Medals have been ordered and received for the 2006 Mini-McKinney. Prepared list of new life masters who will receive their LM pins at the January Sectional Tournament.

Treasurer's Report

Since Bob Janis was not present, there was no Treasure's report and the Unit 143 budget was postponed until the February meeting.

:

STANDING COMMITTES

1. Awards/Nominating/Club Liaison

Donna Pedrotti stated that plaques and trophies have been received. Because of Mary Hruby's recent injury, Donna will work on partnerships at the January Sectional Tournament. Betty Freeman will help out at the Friday evening partnership table.

1. Charity/Hospitality/Caddies

No report

1. Education/Knockouts

Per ACBL, we can no longer have an AX bracket in our St. Louis KO tournament with Kansas City. Jennifer Luner and Sasanka Ramanadham proposed a new set of brackets as follows: Flight A: Unlimited, Flight B: 0-2000 MP, Flight C: 0-750 MP. Novice Flight: 0-99 MP. These bracket ranges were discussed with Connie Leonard, President of Unit 223 Kansas City. She is in agreement and will have a vote on these bracket ranges at their January 27, 2007 board meeting. Jennifer Luner and Sasanka Ramanadham motioned and Donna Pedrotti seconded that these new brackets be accepted. The motion passed.

Jennifer made a report on the first meeting of the Education Committee. One item discussed was way to improve on membership retention. We are presently first in unit for getting new members but are fifth in member retention. Jennifer, Ed Hale and Jane Ettleson want to have meetings with club owners to improve player retention rate. The Committee will submit a budget to the Board for carrying out activities it would like to undertake. Another idea was to have a PRO-AM game at our Sectional Tournaments. This game would pair LM with NLM players. The membership will be surveyed at the January Sectional Tournament to determine their interest.

1. Membership

Via E-mail Steve Zenk reported membership gains include 7 new members, 4 reinstated member and 1member transferring in. Membership losses included 5 members transferring out, 5 members becoming inactive and 1 deceased member. There was a net gain of 1 member during the past month.

E. NAOP/GNT

No report

1. Website

Sheryl Finkenstadt indicated that site usage for the month has been steadily climbing with about a 20% increase since last March. The pages most viewed are the Home, Results, Club and new news pages. The online directory is getting 80+ hits per month. Sheryl has contracted for 2 year service with the Site5 people for a $45 per year savings. Sheryl will post January Sectional results on the website.

G. Publicity

Sasanka Ramanadham needs to see attendance figures at the January Sectional Tournament to determine if e-mail advertising is effective.

1. Membership/199er Tournament

No Report.

1. Recording Secretary/Bidding Boxes

Bob Wheeler said the bidding boxes are available for the tournament

1. Vice President

No Report

1. Tournament Chairman

No Report.

OLD BUSINESS

Ed Hale provided a copy of flight distributions at our last Sectional and Regional tournaments. The data showed that there was no consistent data which showed more A players then B or C players. (Ideal situation is to have equal numbers of A, B & C flight players.) Ed concluded that there is no compelling case for changing bracket limits at this time. Future data from the January Sectional Tournament and other tournaments will be examined and discussed at a future meeting.

NEW BUSINESS

Motion was made by Donna Pedrotti and seconded by Bob Wheeler for Unit 143 to not pay the extra fee for the February STAC games. Motion passed.

Because of the NABC tournament in March, there will be no board meeting for that month. The next Board meeting will be on Wednesday February 21.

Meeting adjourned at 8:35 PM.