Minutes of Nottinghamshire Contract Bridge Association
for meeting held on 6th February 2019

1 Apologies for absence.

Shirley Ashtari, Ian Dovey, Sue McIntosh

2 Approval of the minutes of last meeting.

  These were approved

3 Matters arising. 

Ian Dovey the county treasurer was not at the meeting and has not replied to the question raised in the last meeting regarding the monies in the savings account it was decided to roll over this until the next meeting,  Graham Brindley asked whether we had enough teams to run a plate event.  Graham will contact the 3 team captains to see if they wish to take part.  The plate could then be an all play all event.

4 Chairs’ report Toni Smith 

Toni asked everyone in the group to do an exercise to try and sort out the jobs and roles that exist on the committee. From this it was highlighted that some people are expected to do many tasks ( for example county secretary) some roles have not really been defined ( such as organising events) and there was a need for the committee to advertise for someone to be responsible for training and development.  Toni agreed to write a job description for this role.  Sue Wright agreed to take the results of the exercise away and write up a summary.  Clare requested that we look again to see if we could find anyone to take over promotions and publicity. Toni invited all committee members to support by taking on a role either alone or as a group to spread the load more evenly. It was important that all committee members were active participants.

5 Liaison with Nottingham Bridge club Toni Smith/Clare Batten. 

We had asked for a meeting before the club AGM but the Chair of Nottingham bridge club had decided to wait until after wards in April.

6 Revamping teams of 4  

Keith was unsure about whether masterpoints could be awarded if non EBU players are allowed to play and whether they could play in all divisions if there is more than one division.  Keith also said that some people would not enter if they thought it would be too competitive so it was important to make sure that there was a bottom division which had a more social element.  The problem had arisen last year that in making 2 divisions the top division had not had enough people to make it viable and those that were left in the top division had been excluded form playing so the competition had not been open to all.  Keith said that if he could get 10 teams to enter he was confident of making 2 divisions. Toni invited a subcommittee tow rok on this of Keith Shirley Sue and Jane has agreed to help Keith set this up with regard to rules, outside her holiday. Clare will check in the masterpoint handbook and get clarification on the rules governing non EBU players. Timing is getting critical as the rules and format for this year need issuing in March for an April start. Toni said she would do a short piece for the time being in the next newsletter.

7 Clubs conference

This had been booked to be at Ramsdale Golf club on the 15th March.  The budget was set at £500 and we wanted to make sure that all club teachers would be invite as the theme is teaching and club membership drives.  Tim Anderson from the EBU will be speaking about the EBU membership campaign.

8 May bridge festival

Toni Smith explained this is a joint venture with Leicestershire and Derbyshire to promote bridge resulting from a meeting Toni and Clare had attended at Spondon with the other 2 counties.  The idea being to promote bridge.  It was hope that it would run from 19th May starting with the Green pointed Swiss teams going through to the Midlands mixed pairs on 26th May.  It was hoped to run a 3 counties SIMs possibly on the Monday.  A beginners event on Wed afternoon and although have a joint TD conference on that week which Keith Spencer has agreed to co-ordinate with Ken Smith from Derbyshire.  Concerns were expressed about the cost of running a SIMs and whether there would be take up from the clubs.  Clare is to look further into this but was still awaiting a reply from Gordon Rainsford over whether it could be “Blue pointed”.  She had already had a quote from ECATs to run the event. Sue had ideas on Derby radio for the media promotion as have EBU if we join their membership campaign.

9 County matches. 

Mark said that none of the teams were doing very well at the moment.  Mark said he was concentrating on the selection for the first team which was being picked on merit.  The second and third teams consideration was given to those pairs that were willing to travel the long distance games such as Gloucester. The arrangement with Shirley helping with the admin was working well.  Mark had asked John Auld to continue to write up the report on the county website.  Toni said that she had asked John to included games played by the second and third teams as this could be part of their development.  John had replied that captains of the 2/3 team would need to identify and send material to him. Clare said that John Auld's recent masterclass where he discussed hands had been praised and well attended.  Mark was asked if he would do a debrief after the games but he declined to do this for now.

10 Training 

There was one more masterclass planned on 27th Feb.   It was also suggested that we look again at running an EBU teacher training course in Nottingham although there is one due to be run in Spondon later this year.

11 Competitions Schedule 

Graham Brindley  Graham asked about directors and the making of board for these events.  Graham said he was happy to help make up boards and Keith agreed.  Toni asked that the committee get involved and that they make sure that the events are advertised at their own clubs.  The arrangements regarding the pricing and the inclusion of food within the cost was discussed and Clare agreed to go back to Derbyshire and have the food not included within the price. Keith preferred a 1 or 2pm start. a Forthcoming events i Blue Pointed Swiss Pairs 21st Feb ii Journal cup  17th March Keith will direct the two events above he will also direct the Green Point event on 19th May.  Mark Goddard raised concerns that the EBU may require a director from their tournament directors list to do green point events,  Clare is to check this with EBU.  Derbyshire now have 10 sets of boards we can borrow for the blue point event and also the green point event.

12. Correspondence Clare Batten 

A complaint has been raised by Tony Brooks the Nottingham cafe bridge organiser about the copy he sent to the editor of the Newsletter regarding the for the coming cafe bridge event.  A discussion took place regarding this event.  As another newsletter will be produced in soon it was felt that we could add in the information that was omitted and for it still to reach people in time for the next event.  Clare will reply to Tony.

13. Finance Ian Dovey 

Graham Brindley produced a spreadsheet which showed the money that had been made from the Wednesday afternoon sessions of supervised play.  It also showed the monies that had been spent on entry to various national events and the money paid out in travel expenses to the county.   It was felt that we should at sometime revisit the way the expenses were paid.  Clare reminded the group that she had done a survey into how other counties spend their money when she was chair of the Midlands working group. Most counties do not pay traveling expenses.  One county requires all its squad to pay a sub which they goes to pay expenses but most squads are not funded from the central budget.  Clare was also asked if she could do a survey of who had benefitted from the monies paid out in entries to national events.

14. Newsletter Paul Sweet 

Paul said that he was happy to collate articles for the newsletter but was struggling with the IT skills needed to produce the final article.  Sue Wright said she was happy to help out with this. The newsletter shodul include technical issues and educaitonal articles as well as simple copy form clubs and it was suggested other Counties websites and newlstters be reviewed for ideas.

15. Youth bridge

Paul SweetPaul raised the issue on whether we should arrange for Moira Scott to come to the area and train bridge buddies to go into schools.  It was felt that at this stage we did not have the capacity to do this and it was something that should be club based and mentioned at the clubs conference.

16. AOB 

The date of the county AGM needed to be fixed. After some discussion the only viable date was 8th May.  Graham pointed out that Ian needed to be aware so he could get the accounts done.  Mark asked who would be doing the accounts.  Clare is to email Ian to make sure he has checked whether Martin Mellor was still prepared to do them and also to make him aware of the time schedule to get them done. 
The committee will next meet the week before the AGM on 1st May to finalise the arrangements.  Clare will need to contact members before then and asked for nominations for the committee and motions for the meeting.  Mark asked whether as the President had been coopted for this year whether this position would up for nominations (normally if voted on the position is for 3 years).  He felt as the current president had not attended any meetings that this post should be advertised again.  Clare pointed out that this was a honary position and the president could not vote at committee meetings but she was happy to clarify the position by asking for nominations.
Post script: Toni has asked Ankush and he is rather busy to attend.