Unit Board

ACBL Unit 431’s Annual General Meeting will be held starting 12:00 noon, February 21, 2025, at Strawberry Vale Hall, 11 High Street, Victoria.  

All paid-up ACBL member in good standing with Unit 431 are invited to attend.

The meeting’s agenda is to review the past year, confirm current board members, and vote in new players taking positions.

If you wish to volunteer as a board member or assist with events held by the board, please contact Ernie Tradewell (president) or Farhad Rohani (vice president).

There will be an individual bridge movement game after the meeting, followed by pizza.

Players participate solo and switch partners each round. Debbie Wastle will organize and direct the game: [email protected].

For ordering purposes (we don’t want to order too many or too few pizzas), please pre-register by emailing Maureen Trappe at [email protected].

Unit 431 held its Annual General Meeting on February 16th 2024, via Zoom.

Two new board members were elected by acclamation for 2-year terms:

• Jill Stainforth as Membership Coordinator. Jill had been serving as interim for the past few months.
• Susan Jobbins as Inventory Coordinator.

The president welcomed both to the board. He also thanked outgoing Inventory Coordinator Madeleine Tremblay for her service.

The list of board members, including  photos (for most of them), can be found on the Unit’s website, bridgevictoria.ca, under Governance.

Highlights

• We held 1 regular Sectional Tournament and 2 limited (0-299) sectionals. We will be using both Monterey and Mary Winspear for tournaments this year. Monterey is preferred due to the cost so we will continue to try to locate both seasonal sectionals at that location.
• The Seasonal Gathering (formerly Christmas Party) was one of our largest celebrations in many years with 28 tables. Prior to the bridge game, attendees enjoyed a hilariously commented fashion show which saw golfers, boulevardiers and geocachers among others strutting the runway.  A good time was had by all participants.
• The unit posted a net profit of about $3000 for 2023, an improvement over the previous year.
• The unit received a $4500 grant from ACBL to help develop bridge in Victoria, to be applied to Duplicate Light.
• We are now using pre-duplicated boards for all sectional games including team games. Pre-duplicated boards are now available for all sectional team games on the island. It was made more convenient to provide these boards by having all unit boards barcoded for the duplicating machine.
• We remember all those bridge friends we lost during the past year: Alan Filmer, Nancy Allan, Mary Szarka, Emma Abrams, Sue Foley, Nigel Williamson, and Michael Scott-Kerr. Obituaries can be found on our In Memoriam page (under Members).
• The results of the 2023 Unit races (Mini McKenney and Ace of Clubs) for all masterpoint categories can be found under Members on our website. Click here for direct access.

Attendance

An announcement was sent on January 21st via ACBL’s email service (Pianola) to all 406 members with valid emails . 73% (297) opened the email and presumably read it. A reminder, which included the link for the Zoom meeting was sent to the same group on February 13th. 266 people opened the email.

Only ten people actually showed up for the AGM. We reached quorum (20), after phoning around for volunteers.

It’s disappointing that less than 4% of Unit members feel sufficiently motivated to attend the AGM. Perhaps the they are put off by the format (Zoom) which is unfamiliar to many. The board will be trying to bring back an in-person AGM next year. As with previous live AGMs it will include a bridge game, as well as free pizza.

I hope that got your attention. You will recognize it of course as the Marine’s recruiting slogan which they have been using since 1789, but clearly outdated in these more enlightened times.

Unit 431 is actually looking for a few good volunteers, regardless of gender, to fill vacant board positions for 2022. The election will be held at the Annual General Meeting at the end of February. In the meantime, however, our Nominating Committee would like to hear from people interested in giving back a little to the Victoria bridge community.

Becoming a Board member will provide you with an opportunity to bring creative ideas and suggestions forward to improve bridge in our community.  The board meets approximately 8 times a year. We will be happy to describe open board positions and explain how you could help the Unit fulfill its role. If it’s not your cup of tea, no worries, we won’t badger you. But we would appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

All you have to do is to click here. One of the Nominating Committee members* will give you a call back at a time of your choosing.

If you want to see what kind of work is involved, please take a look at our newly updated Board Job Descriptions. You can also consult recent Board Minutes or talk to current Board members.

• Nominating committee members: Holly Boudreau, Maureen Trappe, JP Weber