President's Report

    by Mary Stuart, Urbana IL

Many of our Central Illinois clubs have reopened and are working to rebuild their schedules and attendance. Thank you to everyone who is supporting your local clubs with your participation.

Many players are also eager to resume face-to-face tournament play and are asking when this might happen. After careful deliberation, the Unit 208 Board decided that we cannot undertake face-to-face tournaments while ACBL restrictions and guidelines are subject to change. Several tournaments in other areas of the country were scheduled for this month and ACBL cancelled those just last week.

We expect that our first face-to-face tournament will be the North American Pair finals in Springfield IL on November 14.

Until then, I hope you'll continue to enjoy playing face-to-face at your club and online in the Central and Southern Illinois virtual club.

Annual Meeting -- Central Illinois Bridge Association

Our Unit held its annual membership meeting on Wednesday, July 14 online on Zoom. All members of Unit 208 were notified in advance of the meeting by email and several attended. Here's a summary of the main discussions:

President Mary Stuart welcomed and thanked those present for attending and introduced the officers of Unit 208:
    Lori Moore, Vice-President
    Ann Caparros, Secretary
    Eunice Patton, Treasurer

Treasurer’s Report.  Eunice Patton reported that money from the Unit checking account was invested in Certificates of Deposit. As Unit activity resumes, her reports will contain detailed and transparent information regarding Unit expenses and income. The Unit will receive additional funds in 2021 from the ACBL for Unit 208 membership dues.

Membership.  Unit 208 currently has 519 members with more than 40 percent in the 20-200 masterpoint range. Stuart discussed the decline in Unit and ACBL-wide membership and updated the group on the closure of the Galesburg IL club.

Tournaments. There was nothing to report on past tournaments since none were held in 2020 and none to date in 2021. 

Regarding future tournaments, Stuart summarized actions taken at the Unit Board's meeting on June 9. The Board decided not to hold any sectional tournaments in 2021, including the Senior Olympics event usually held in August. She cited several reasons for the Board’s decision, including concern for our members’ health and safety, the need to build up participation in face-to-face games, as well as rules mandated by ACBL for holding tournaments during the pandemic (which are still in force). 

Stuart said conversations had begun regarding club collaboration on sectional tournaments. She also noted that the Board would be meeting to discuss various approaches to sectional tournaments going forward, opening up opportunities for more members to get involved.

Program:  Karen Walker presented information on three issues of importance to Unit members:

Tournaments. We are hoping to again host the Illini Regional on Memorial Day in 2022. However, current ACBL policies give ACBL the power to cancel a tournament with just 30 days’ notice. Under these conditions, we are reluctant to sign a contract with the hotel and be obligated to pay thousands of dollars if we are forced to cancel.

New Alerts.  Karen summarized some of the new alert procedures that went into effect at the beginning of 2021. The changes to alerts for online play are listed in the April issue of The Advocate and at http://www.illinibridge.com/alerts.htm.  All of the changes for online and face-to-face play are described at https://bridgefeed.acbl.org/red-alert .

Cheating.  ACBL and BBO are both working to identify and combat cheating. Karen, who serves on the Online Ethical Oversight Committee, has chaired several disciplinary hearings. She provided examples of the kinds of information that BBO is able to collect and analyze. She detailed the types of cases now being handled by ACBL. Some high profile players have been investigated, as well as B and C players. The hearing reports are available on the ACBL web site.

Players can help in this effort by reporting possible cases of cheating. If you've encountered a pair whom you believe may be colluding or acting on unauthorized information, you can file a Player Memo on the ACBL web site -- https://www.acbl.org/conduct-and-ethics/player-memo . 

In Memory

We are saddened by the loss of Bernie Riley of Pekin. He passed away on July 14 at age 87.

Bernie was a long-time promoter and volunteer for players in our area. He taught classes, wrote a bridge column for the Pekin Times newspaper, chaired sectional tournaments and was a manager and director for two local clubs.

Bernie had a special interest in teaching bridge to young people and developed his own two-player game for ages 12+. Designed to introduce newcomers to counting and taking tricks, the game uses a 30-card deck and requires no bidding. He also included a solitaire version. If you'd like a copy of the rules, email kwalker2@comcast.net .

Condolences to Bernie's wife Geraldine, his family and his many friends. His obituary is here.

♠ Congratulations to members who have advanced in rank: 

Junior Masters
Nancy Rader, Champaign
Sheryl Scherschligt, Champaign
Carol Schuster, Champaign

Club Masters
Peter Kimerling, Bloomington
Carol Livingstone, Urbana
Victoria Pierson, Pekin

Sectional Master
Sherry Helfer, Savoy
Rob Husband, Savoy
Thomas Rauchfuss, Urbana

Regional Master
Vernon Knapp, Tolono
Marilou Landes, Savoy
Bob Osiek, Champaign

Life Master
Larry Ziegler, Bloomington

Ruby Life Master
Mary Jones, Champaign
Madhu Viswanathan, Champaign

♠ Welcome to new members: 
    Bonnie Fearis, Peoria
    Nancy Rader, Champaign
    Sheryl Scherschligt, Champaign
    Diane Schumacher, Champaign

Central & Southern Illinois Virtual Bridge Club

Our online club has made some changes as local clubs transition back to face-to-face play. Some weekly games are on hiatus for the summer and will be reevaluated this fall depending on demand.

The online club will be offering a week of "last-chance" North American Pair qualifying games the week of August 23. These will be the 0-499er game on Tuesday evening and the open pair games on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings. The 299er games will not be NAP qualifying sessions. The NAP sessions games will charge a higher entry fee to cover the ACBL sanction fee.

Here's the current schedule for our online club:
  

Open Pair Games	Limited Pair Games
Wednesdays:   6:50 pm   Thursdays:      6:50 pm   Saturdays:    12:10 pm   Sundays:         6:50 pm     Open Pairs: 1st, 3rd & 5th Sundays     Mentor/Mentee Pairs: 2nd & 4th Sundays	Tuesdays   (499er):     6:50 pm   Thursdays  (299er):    6:30 pm   Saturdays  (299er):    11:50 am
♥ Game results on ACBL Live
♥ Free lessons and workshops
Tuesdays, 11:00-12:30 -- Beginner lesson with Lori Moore.         Join Zoom meeting    Thursdays, 3:00-4:30 ----- Intermediate lesson with Lori Moore.    Join Zoom meeting

    See our help file file for details, schedule updates and tips for playing online.

    Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/ILVirtualBridge

    Questions?  Click here to contact the people who can help.