1. The Reston Regional will be held in Reston, Virginia from July 3rd to the 9th.  The room rate is a very reasonable $117 per night with the group code G-BR22 "District 6 Bridge".  It's a good chance to earn those Gold and Red Points!  Please consider attending.  More details can be found at https://web2.acbl.org/Tournaments/Ads/2023/07/2307106.pdf
2. We will have our Summer Sectional July 28-30 at the Bridge Center.  We run our Sectionals as Local Sectionals, which award full master point totals, 80% of which are Silver.  Please note that Unit 146 no longer requires proof of COVID-19 Vaccination for participation at our Unit events.
3. June, July, and August are club qualifying months for the North American Pairs.  Our Sunday Unit Game will have qualifying games on June 11th, 25th, July 16th, July TBD, August 13th, and August 20th.  We will not add a surcharge to the regular entry fee for these games.  All of our Unit Games provide a $2 discount for non-life masters and their partners, even when the partner is a life master.  Please join us on Sunday afternoons!
4. There will be no Unit Game on Sunday June 18th because of Father's Day.
5. Our next Unit 146 Board of Directors meeting will be held at noon on July 16th.  Unit members are welcome to attend and participate. If you have items for discussion please let me know and I'll add them to the agenda.

See you at the table!

Pete Haglich, Unit President

Thanks to those of you who helped to make our recent Local Sectional a success by playing.  A special thanks to many of you who pitched in at the end of the day to clean up the Bridge Center in preparation for the next day.  Even more special thanks to Wrus Kristiansen and Bob Hendricks for volunteering to direct the Friday and Saturday events.  The most special thanks go to June Cartledge and Beth Rafferty for their extensive planning and daily meal preparation.  

As of Tuesday 5/2 the ACBL has not send the Live results emails for Sunday nor have they posted the final results to the usual tournament web page.  However, the master points seem to be available in your master point history.  A summary of the event overalls, including Sunday, is available here:  https://web2.acbl.org/tournaments/results/2023/04/2304336.htm.  There were more than 356 master points awarded to 74 unique players.

A few words about how we are running Sectionals now, as compared with the pre-COVID era.  We recognize that our attendance is unlikely to ever match the numbers we had back then.  In order for the Unit to run these tournaments without raising entry fees or  losing money we've needed to make some adjustments.  The first of these relates to the between-session meal.  Beth and June have reduced the costs for these meals significantly, trading time for money, in essence.  They shop the warehouse clubs for the sandwiches and come in early each day to package them and prepare them for that day's lunch.  It's a lot of work, for which we should all be grateful.  The second major adjustment has been to run Sectionals using volunteer club directors instead of hiring ACBL tournament directors.  In 2021 and 2022 the ACBL mechanism for doing this was called a Downgraded Sectional, which resulted in reduced master points at about 65% of a full Sectional.  In 2023 ACBL has changed the designation for these tournaments to Local Sectional.  They have also increased the master point awards so that the totals are the same as those for a full Sectional.  The only difference is that 80% of the points are Silver and 20% are Black.  Unit 146 is allowed to run our Sectionals as Local Sectionals as long as we expect fewer than 25 tables per session.  Given current attendance, that isn't a problem.

Unit-sponsored events are really community events, where we, the Unit members, are the community.  Please continue to support us by participating.  Consider how you might help out by volunteering.

Looking forward to seeing you at our next Sectional in late July.

Pete Haglich, Unit President

The Unit 146 Board of Directors will hold their second quarterly meeting of 2023 on May 7th at noon at the Bridge Center.  Non-routine discussion items will cover a comprehensive By-Laws revision, a plan to hold beginner bridge classes, and a plan to reboot the Silver Aces program.  Unit members are invited to attend.  If you come, we hope that you will plan to stay to play in the Unit Championship game at 1:30.

PH

Congratulations to Doug Lahammer and Bob Pfeiffer for their results at last week's Gatlinburg Regional.  Doug placed in the overalls in 4 different team events, playing with teammates from Northern Virginia and West Virginia.  Bob came in the overalls of an A/X Pairs game, playing with a regular partner from Culpepper, VA.

(Hat tip to Barbara Duer for first alerting us to their participation in her virtual and F2F club email.)

P.H.

Many of you are receiving email from club owners about upcoming events and other bridge topics, even if you never signed up for them.  The club owners probably obtained your email from the ACBL roster.  The ACBL terms of use (found at https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/about/termsofuse.pdf) allow them to send information about ACBL-sanctioned bridge events and announcements and newsletters discussing activities of the respective club, Unit, or District.  If you don't want to receive their emails then send them a note to direct them to remove you from their mailing list.  If they won't honor your wishes then let me know.

Emails from the Unit will be sent using the database we maintain on BridgeWebs, which is also updated with the ACBL roster.  If you want to opt out of those, you can either use the Contact Us form on the web page or else you can update your member profile in the Member Area (under Membership).  If neither of those work then contact the webmaster, Wrus Kristiansen, or myself.

P. Haglich

Jim and Judy Fox won the 0-10,000 KO Teams Event at the NABC in New Orleans, playing with teammates Maximo Crusizio and Rodrigo Garcia Da Rosa of Fort Lauderdale FL.  Details of their win and their team are found in the Thursday March 16 bulletin. 

(Thanks to Barbara Duer to pointing me to the result and the correct bulletin.)

Please send me any other tournament successes and I'll add them to this item.

P. Haglich

Unit 146 News March 2023

Hello, I hope that you are enjoying the hints of spring that we are seeing.  Kathy and I have seen our loropetalum and hellebore (Lenten Rose) plants bloom, along with a few daffodils.  We seem to be out of the bleak midwinter and are looking forward to warmer, longer days ahead.  It has been a while since I've communicated with membership, so I thought I'd share some news with you.

Spring Sectional.  Our next Sectional is scheduled for April 28-30.  It will be another Local Sectional, which means that master point totals are the same as a regular Sectional, with 80% of the points being Silver, the remainder Black.  We have found this to be a very economical way for the Unit to run Sectionals, with our volunteer directors.  Please join us!  Details are in another item on the Home Page.

Unit Game.  The Sunday Unit Game at 1:30 PM continues with a faithful cadre of players.  Approximately 1 game each month is designated as a Unit Championship, with extra master points.  We have Unit Championships scheduled for March 12, April 2, and May 7.

Vaccination Requirements.  The Unit 146 Board of Directors voted to remove vaccination requirements from Unit 146 events unless overridden by civil authority or the ACBL.  Vaccination requirements for non-Unit club games are not under Unit jurisdiction and are not governed by this Unit decision.  Currently, only the Sunday Unit Game benefits from this relaxation.  The ACBL policy to require proof of vaccination is in effect for Sectionals, however, even our Local Sectional.  

New (old) Webmaster.  Wrus Kristiansen has gracefully agreed to serve again as Unit Webmaster.  I thank Marshall Hutto for his several years of service as such.  If you have congratulatory news such as tournament achievements please send them to myself or Louise Gordon and we'll work with Wrus to get them posted.  Please do not send him items directly.

Ace of Clubs Certificates.  An earlier website announcement celebrated our 2022 winners for Ace of Clubs and Mini-Mckenney.  ACBL recently sent me the Ace of Clubs certificates.  We'll be distributing them at the Bridge Center or via US Mail in the next week or so.

Cordially,

Pete Haglich, Unit President

Special Games

• April 24-30 – Silver Linings Week; 150% regular club points, 100% silver
• August 7-13 – Silver Linings Week; 150% regular club points, 100% silver
• June 1 - August – North American Pairs (NAP) Club-level Qualifying, 2x points, half red and half black

There are also extra point weeks and games scheduled  The first extra point  game is Feb 13-19  Double black points.  Extra 2$$.

Nothing in March and Charity Foundation Week April 10-16  Double black points Extra $$ and then the first really special silver lining week above,   Towards the end of the year there is potential for GNT qualifiers. 

Our Winter Sectional was held January 27–29.  

Many thanks to the following individuals:

• Pete Haglich, Wrus Kristiansen and Tom Hirsch for serving as our local directors
• Carolyn Riegle for serving as our Safety Coordinator and for giving bridge lessons each morning prior to the sectional sessions
• to the volunteers who helped with setup, service, and cleanup
• and to those whose who brought in desserts to share with all attendees.

Please join us at the upcoming Unit 146 Spring Sectional scheduled April 28-30!

“I encourage all Unit Members to attend Board meetings and to share your ideas for improving the Unit with us.  Although we only meet quarterly as a Board, I encourage you to share your ideas with myself or other Board members at any time.  

Peter Haglich, Unit President”

There has been some confusion in the past on the rights of the membership in regarding the participation at Board Meetings.

Article IV Membership Section 2. Rights
Each member shall be entitled to:

(a) Attend all membership meetings, meetings of the Board of Directors, and Committee Meetings with the approval of the Committee Chairman;

(b) Participate in the nomination and election of Unit Directors, and all business of the membership. Participation at a Board Meeting, by a non-board member, is limited to discussion of an issue already on the floor. A new subject may be introduced by obtaining permission of the President, prior to the Board Meeting;

(c) Participate in all Unit tournaments and other activities, subject to any proper rules that may be duly established therefore.

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