Rhode Island Bridge Association, Inc

Minutes of Unit 145 Board Meeting

June 9, 2011

Present: Sue Erwin, Lois DeBlois, Joe Brouillard, Bob Erwin, Bill Shockley,

Ray Hayden, Maureen Fahey, Nancy Rosenbaum, Grace Charron, Chris Del Sesto

Excused: Bill Lang, Dave Prentiss, Stan Williams

Absent: Donna Lamparski

Call to Order:

President Sue Erwin called the meeting to order at 5:30 PM

Secretary’s Report

The minutes of the 16 March, 2011 meeting were distributed, reviewed, and approved unanimously.

Treasurer’s Report

Lois DeBlois presented the report for the period 16 March through 1 June, 2011. An annual report for 2010 was not available.

Concern was raised about the billing for the storage site used for our Sectional equipments. Maureen stated that Stan had been looking into this and he will update the status at the next board meeting. She also is looking at an alternate storage site for our equipment and will address this at the next meeting.

Tournament Manager’s Report

Maureen Fahey stated that the March Sectional was well attended and the change in tournament management has gone smoothly. Maureen estimated that there were just over 40 tables in both Saturday sections and 39 tables for Sunday’s team game

Maureen reported that planning is in order for the upcoming Sectional (11/12 June). Parking has been an issue for events at the Johnston site. Stan Williams contacted the Johnston Police and has their approval for overflow parking across the street in the former BJ’s parking lot. He is also bringing signs to notify our players.

A request was made that the Tournament Manager discuss potential to ‘either begin sale of entries earlier or to have a second person sell entries’ be discussed with the Director in Charge for future sectionals.

Planning for the Unit Gala will be addressed at the next meeting.

Old Business

Board Membership

Sue addressed the loss of board members over the last few months:

Judy Biegner has been the Pairing Chair and the Charity Chair for this board over the last decade. She is also a member of the ACBL Charity Committee. Her support and contributions are highly appreciated and we wish her well.

Brenda Iemma has been the Treasurer for the last five years, but she needs to step down temporarily from the board for family reasons. Brenda has been an active member of this board – including past President - over the last two decades and will be missed.

Bob Erwin continues to fill in as Secretary for the unit. A discussion of combining the positions of Secretary and Treasurer was raised by Lois DeBlois. She restated it as a proposed amendment for inclusion in the Bylaws Update, to be voted on at the 2011 Gala. The recommendation for proposing this amendment was approved by a unanimous vote.

Nancy Rosenbaum recommended the following three new candidates for board membership:

Ann Broomfield Paula Najarian Richard Tropper

All candidates were unanimously approved by the board membership and will be presented at the Annual Meeting for Unit approval.

By-Laws Update

Paragraph VI-2 has been updated to add the concerns brought up in March, and to incorporate the recommended change allowing a combined Secretary/Treasurer. The set of updates shall be provided to the Board before the next meeting.

Any additional changes/corrections will be voted on at the August meeting. Those approved by the Board of Directors will be presented to the membership and formally voted on during the Annual Meeting held during the 2011 RIBA Gala.

New Business

Nominating Committee

Sue stated that a Unit Nominating Committee must be stood up to prepare a slate of nominations for the unit officers for 2012. This year will require nominations for all four officers to be presented to the membership for their vote at the unit meeting during the 2011 Gala. The following board members volunteered to serve on this committee: Bill Shockley, Ray Hayden, Joe Brouillard, and Nancy Rosenbaum. They will meet and provide their recommendations to this board at the August meeting (as well as to the President by 1 Aug for inclusion in the 2011 issue of Bridge Bits.

Bridge Bits

Sue is getting ready to generate the yearly issue of Bridge Bits. It was requested that all committees forward their article for the year’s activities before 1 August. The nominating committee will need to provide their proposed slate of candidates to be included in the Bridge Bits.

Tournament Chair for Warwick Regional

Joe Brouillard has been named to chair the Labor Day Regional in Warwick this year. He will be working to get a list of people for the Hospitality Desk before tournaments and to staff the Partnerships Desk before ALL games. It is very important to the District and the Unit to make sure we are there to represent our Unit!

The next meeting will be held on 17 August.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:22 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert Erwin

Secretary (Acting), Unit 145

Rhode Island Bridge Association