ACBL Director's Report
ACBL Director's ReportThe past few weeks have been very hectic for the ACBL, just as they have been for each of you. What follows below is the message that will be printed in the May ACBL Bridge Bulletin, but I thought you might like to see it now. I have updated it with some new information from the past few days.
We cancelled the Spring NABC, the first such cancellation ever. I would like to take this opportunity to thank every one of the volunteers who worked on this tournament. It is a massive undertaking for the local organizing committee to prepare for an NABC, and this wonderful group of people was ready to go. Their work is no less appreciated because the tournament was cancelled. If they are still interested, we can try to return to their city in the future.
I cannot praise management and staff enough for the work they have put in. The IT department worked like champions getting the Support Your Club games up and running in days. A few days later, the individual clubs were able to start running their games online. The next step was to get a tournament online. Projects that we would expect to take months to complete are being done in days. Our directing staff is helping out as well and is directing online. It is estimated that approximately $100,000 was raised for the clubs in March.
BBO and some volunteers have been wonderful partners as well. They have worked with us since we made a preliminary inquiry before clubs started closing down. Bridgebase Online's capacity was initially a problem, but they managed to increase it several times. They have cooperated every step of the way. I know they are a business and they benefit from this as well, but that does not make their efforts any less impressive.
The Board of Directors held its first online regular board meeting in March. Many items that were not time-sensitive were deferred to the next board meeting, but we were able to handle the things that needed to be handled. One of our board members set up webinars for us and handled the technology issues as we did not want to take staff away from their work. He went so far as remotely accessing into computers to resolve issues and handling the “raise your hand” queue for me. I am not mentioning him by name because he thinks it was no big deal, but it was. Other members helped out, too. I have never seen the board work as one as well as it did that week. The BOD will be meeting every other Wednesday starting April 1, for as long as needed.
Staff has worked tirelessly in a sea of confusion and uncertainty. Management has been facilitating, planning, forecasting and just plain figuring out what we need to do to get through this. I am proud that the first two priorities were figuring out what we could do to help clubs and how we could best take care of our employees. We are investigating what help the ACBL can receive from the COVID-19 Relief bill passed last week. I am also proud to have been part of the search committee that recommended we hire Joe Jones as our executive director. His signoff on communications during this time has been “We will get through this together,” and I believe him.
Thanks to
everyone for all they have done to help us get through this. Play bridge online
for your enjoyment and to help the organizations involved survive this time. My
sincere sympathies to those of you who contracted this disease, and to our
members, families and friends who did not survive the disease. And remember . .
.
We will get through this together.
If you have questions or suggestions about ACBL Board actions or other bridge matters, please contact me at gkheth@hotmail.com or 917 S. Main St., Morton IL 61550-2419.