Well, if you have read the August Bridge Bulletin, you have seen proof I attended the grand opening of the new ACBL headquarters in Horn Lake MS. My son and I appear in one of the photos with the article. The new offices are very nice. The building is not extravagant, but it is clean and bright and the offices are much more generous than the State of Illinois thinks necessary. The museum is wonderful. It is very inclusive and well designed and lit. There are several interactive displays, including the Hall of Fame, that everyone, including the kids, had fun exploring. The museum will be open to visitors sometime later this fall, so if you are near Memphis, stop by. The headquarters building is only a mile or two off I-55.

New Orleans NABC:  I attended the New Orleans NABC and Board meeting last month. One of the highlights for me was getting to present $5000 checks to representatives from the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and the New Orleans Mission. New Orleans had 6000 homeless people before Katrina, 12,000 homeless after Katrina, and 19,000 after the oil spill. The SPCA is providing care for the animals that belonged to people who can no longer afford them after the oil spill. Both organizations were thrilled to receive the donations. The donations were funded by money raised from charity games.

Grand National Teams news:  Special congratulations to District 8's Flight C team -- Brian Maloney, Doug Steele, Mu Zhang and Jim Slaughter -- who tied for third-fourth in the national finals. Our Open and B flight teams were eliminated after the second day and our flight A team was eliminated after the first day. 

Motions passed at the Board of Directors meetings in New Orleans included:

1. Notices of disciplinary hearings and reports from those hearings shall be in writing.

2. It is no longer necessary to pre-alert "short" preempts (5-card weak two-bids and 6-card three-bids of major suits). Instead, they shall be alerted when the bids are made. A three-level preempt of a 6-card minor suit is not alertable.

3. Unless otherwise instructed by a tournament director, a member of each partnership must be present and seated before cards are removed from a board.

4. Recommended conditions of contest were passed for two-session Swiss Team events with four to nine tables in any particular flight or grouping. Please see item 102-53 for the details of the movements recommended.

5. Another new event was added to the Fall NABCs – the Senior Mixed Pairs. This will be held on Wednesday and Thursday and will count as a Grand Life Master qualification.

6. The start times for the 2012 Philadelphia NABC will be 10:30 am and 3:30 pm, give or take 30 minutes.

7. The 0-5000 Blue Ribbon Pairs is now a mid-chart event.

8. The “Sectional Tournament Scheduling and Allocations” policy was amended. The discussion on this item was very enlightening. Sanctions may be submitted as far in advance as desired but sectionals are only sanctioned one year out. If a tournament is historically held on certain dates, and has been held on those dates for two of the past three years, that tournament will be sanctioned. If the sanction is not on file one year in advance, the date is up for grabs by other units that have a sanction on file. So even if a unit loses its date because it did not file a sanction in a timely manner one year, it can reclaim its dates so long as it has all future sanctions in on time (or at least 2 out of every 3 years.)  See item 102-140 for full details.

9. A similar motion was passed for regionals. They greatly changed the way regionals are allocated after the four that are guaranteed to each district. No district will be allowed to run more than nine regionals per year under the new rules. District 8 does not have a chance at any additional regionals unless one of our tournaments has an attendance of more than 3000 tables for three out of four consecutive years. Regionals have a policy similar to that for sectionals for traditional dates, except that the sanctions are issued three years in advance. See item 102-141 for full details.

10. The Board decided to take no action on redistricting. (They must review the issue at least once every five years.)

Two significant issues were deferred to November. The issue of Regionals at Sea was separated from item 102-141 and then deferred. No additional RAS sanctions will be issued until after the next Board meeting. Also, a motion to impose slow-play penalties for NABC++ Knockout events was deferred at the request of the Laws Commission. The LC wanted to discuss the legality of some of the proposed sanctions before the motion was passed by the Board as several members of the Laws Commission had doubts about some of the sanctions. (The Laws Commission meets two days after the Board meeting ends. After a thorough discussion, the LC decided the penalties were not illegal.) 

I look forward to seeing many of you at our next District 8 regionals -- St. Louis (August 9-15) and Fort Wayne (September 20-26).