AMERICAN CONTRACT BRIDGE LEAGUE
6575 Windchase Blvd. Horn Lake, MS. 38637
Claire Jones
District 18 Director
(901) 332-5586
2708 Lakeview Ave FAX: (901) 398-7754
Regina, Sk. S4S 1G3
Canada
H: (306) 584-3516
F: (306) 585-1443
Email: stats@accesscomm.ca
Orlando Newsletter
November, 2016
I continue to receive letters from players across the District relating stories of their achievements. One of the underlying themes in all these stories is how they have been mentored and helped along the way. Bridge would not be the same without the efforts of our many volunteers. Each year I have the privilege of being able to recognize just a few of these valuable helpers. This year I had the privilege of naming Larry Boettcher of Conrad, MT. and Joan Quinlan of Regina, SK. to the ACBL Goodwill Committee as well as naming Cookie Johnson of Butte, MT and Elizabeth Warren of Red Deer, AB. to the National Charity Committee. There are many more who could be named but these four deserve special recognition. Congratulation to all.
Our District depends on volunteerism. One position especially reliant on this is the State and Provincial representatives on our District Board. This year we are losing 3 of these representatives. Montana’s Mary Jo Brown and Saskatchewan’s Alex McGregor are up for re-election and are not rerunning while Idaho’s Al Kemp had to resign for personal reasons. I would like to thank them for the many hours they have donated to the District, they will be missed.
The District 18 elections officer is Alex McGregor. Alex will be accepting nominations for the vacant positions until Jan. 15th with the voting being completed by the end of February. If you are interested in serving or know of someone who is be sure to contact Alex. awmcgregor@sasktel.net
In discussions with other District Directors I came across an interesting and different stratification method. In this method you set one masterpoint level as your dividing point. You could pick 500, 750, 1000, 1500, or any of the normal break points. The stratification is now done according to where the two players are in relation to that point. For this example I will select 1000 points. If both players have more than 1000 points then they are in Strat A. If one player has more than 1000 points while the other is less than 1000 points they are in Strat B. Finally, if both players have less than 1000 points they would be in Strat C. If you are looking for different games at your tournaments this might be worth a try.
The motions for Orlando promise to be interesting. The recent high profile cheating cases have increased security awareness at our tournaments. We will be dealing with a number of motions intended to strengthen security and protect tournament integrity. Currently a Board committee is studying the structure of our Board of Directors. This committee hopes to provide input on changes that would create a more efficient Board to better serve you the members. This is the beginning of a lengthy process. There is one motion that proposes on line sections for our tournaments. This is an area that is coming but we need to institute carefully. I am looking forward to spirited discussion on this topic.
As always you can find all the motions on the ACBL web site.
http://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/about/OrlandoMotions2016.pdf
Be sure to contact me with your thoughts on any of the motions.
Sincerely,
Claire Jones
District 18 Board of Directors
district18director@acbl.org