Note: this post is currently held by Jason Rihel
Bernardo Iglesias mentioned to the Board that our air-conditioning has recently not been working properly. Natasha volunteered to call the landlord to see if he can fix the problem. Carey mentioned that our florescent lights are old, and could also be a potential problem in the future.
Alex Slive graciously volunteered to patch up the hole in our side wall.
Dave reminded the Board that the club becomes especially messy during the winter, and volunteered to call the building's cleaning woman to see if she would be willing to do extra business with us.
Bernardo Iglesias gave the Tournament Report. Bernardo has now sent out tournament announcements to Chess Life, Chess Horizons, and MACA for October 2009 through February 2010. He would like to finish scheduling the first six months of 2010 by the end of this year. Bernardo noted that our scholastic tournaments have had better attendance recently, thanks to the efforts of Chris Chase. We still have a need for more tournament directors. Charles volunteered to run tournaments on Sundays in 2010 (format TBD).
The Board heard and approved the advertisement for the Herb Healy tournament. The Board unanimously passed a motion to grant $350 to Mike Griffin to buy food for the tournament.
Dave mentioned that on four occasions in the past six months, we have had players pre-enter our tournaments by phone or e-mail without ever showing up on the day of the tournament. The Board unanimously passed the following motion: Our $25 forfeit penalty applies to players who pre-enter a tournament and then don't show up for the first round. We will post a sign to make players aware of this rule.
Jason Rihel volunteered to run tournaments on Tuesday evenings. Jason and the Board brainstormed a number of different ideas for possible tournament formats, including:
Paul MacIntyre mentioned that our e-mail account has not been checked in a long time, and gave the password to Dave. Dave will check the account as soon as he can. In the future, we may wish to switch service providers, as AOL is not necessarily our best option.
Carey Theil brought up the possibility of putting PayPal on our website, and mentioned that it would be helpful to our fundraising drives. The Board largely approved of the idea, but it was noted that our Treasurer, Bob Oresick, has opposed such a move in the past. Since the issue is time-sensitive, and since Bob could not attend the meeting, the Board unanimously approved a motion to put PayPal on our website conditional on Bob's approval.
Jason Rihel reported that he has almost finished cataloging our book collection, which contains over 2,000 items. The Board discussed what could be done with duplicate/unused items: possibilities include selling them at our chess tournaments, and selling them on e-Bay (which would be more work, but would possibly get us better prices).
Bernardo Iglesias gave the Tournament Report.
Alex Slive has some lamps that we may be able to use for the Herb Healy (the Go Club is missing half of its lights).
Mike Griffin will give David Kahn (Go Club President) a list of people who know their passcode.
Bernardo will be submitting an updated 2010 tournament schedule to MACA tomorrow, and will submit a copy to Alex Cherniack.
The Early Bird Rapid Quads will be run by Bernardo Iglesias the first week of every month, and Chris Chase will run them the third week of every month, with a new start time of 6:45.
The time control of the February Octads may also be changed.
The phone number for the BCF Chess Camps will be switched to Paul MacIntyre's number, as he is running the camps.
Bernardo will be taking a two-week vacation in July, and will need fill-in Tournament Directors (Mike volunteered to cover the first two weeks of July).
Putting up posters about our forfeit policy seems to have worked well.
Our lectures haven't been drawing very well – Jason suggested holding them on a less haphazard schedule. We could also hold them after one of our shorter tournaments (perhaps our Quads). Our next lecture will probably be in March.
Paul MacIntyre made a motion to collect one or two games from every tournament to post on the web.
The Board discussed raising the entry fees and prizes for one of our tournaments to see if we can increase attendance. We will try this for our Fall Open.
Alex Slive fixed the hole in our wall.
The lights in our office have been burning out lately, and will need to be replaced. Paul MacIntyre volunteered to buy new bulbs.
Jason Rihel has finalized our library catalogue and has almost finished creating a list of duplicate books. He would like to get this done by the time of the Herb Healy, so we can hold a book sale. The catalogue itself will soon be posted on our website (perhaps in a sortable Excel sheet, updated periodically). Jason's next step will be annotating and reorganizing our shelves (probably by subject).
Dave will call the cleaning lady tomorrow; depending on what she charges, we may want to have her in to clean once a month for the winter. The floors are the highest priority.
We have removed our glass-framed pictures from the tops of our bookshelves (safety hazard).
We should keep advertising our tournaments on our blog. Jason will show Dave how to make posts.
We need to think about obtaining a new laptop; our old one is failing.
Bernardo Iglesias gave the Tournament Report.
Bernardo proposed (via e-mail) to adopt the USCF rule regarding cell phones: A) First offense results in a penalty of 10 minutes or half the remaining time from a player's clock (whichever is less); B) Second (and subsequent) offense for the same player during the same event is loss of the game. The board unanimously approved the motion. Dave has made posters to alert players to the rule change.
We will now be hosting only one Early Bird Rapids per month, on the first Wednesday of each month.
On March 6th, there is a conflicting CCA event; Bernardo will take the opportunity to host a non-rated tournament (and will gauge interest for possible similar events in the future).
Attendance is still down for our Sunday Scholastics.
Bernardo is constructing our tournament schedule for July through October. We will try to host more events on Sundays (Charles Riordan volunteered to TD).
Natasha Christiansen made the following motion: “Unless announced otherwise in advance, anyone having the title of grandmaster may play in all USCF-rated BCF tournaments without (i) paying an entry fee and (ii) having an entry fee withheld from any prize he or she wins.” The board voted on the motion, with 4 votes for, 1 vote against, and 2 abstentions. An identical motion was made for players having the title of International Master. The vote on this second motion was 3 votes for, 1 vote against, and 3 abstentions. As there was no quorum for either motion, the board decided to table both until the next meeting.
Dave Vigorito will give our next lecture on March 10th, and we will set a goal of doing a lecture a month for six months. Marc Esserman volunteered to do a lecture at some point, as did Charles Riordan. The fees will be $20 for non-members and $10 for members.
We will attempt to run a high-stakes tournament in the fall (bigger entry fees, bigger prize, perhaps with a 50% guaranteed prize fund).
We managed to get the club cleaned for $60. The board agreed that we should book another session for April or May.
We need to update the website to remove Thursday Open Houses from our schedule.
The club has a new gmail address, and our website has been updated to reflect the change
The Board discussed the logistics of dealing with our flooding issues.
The following motion passed on a vote of 7 for, 2 against, 2 abstain: “Unless announced otherwise in advance, anyone having the title of Grand Master or International Master may play in all USCF-rated BCF tournaments, without 1) Having to pay an entry fee, and 2) Having an entry fee withheld from an prize he or she wins (unless the tournament is a Quad, in which case the entry fee will still be withheld from any prize won).”
Next meeting to be scheduled via e-mail.
Jason Rihel reported that he has set up an e-mail forwarding service from the main BCC account to his account.
Bob Oresick gave the Treasurer's Report. Our taxes have been submitted and our insurance settled. Bob will e-mail a detailed report to the board. Our current balance is $16,233, and our current membership stands at 129 (Bob theorizes that we will gain members during the summer months, which have historically been a popular time to renew memberships). The landlord is not seeking rent for the month of April, due to the flood.
The freight elevator in our building is broken, which may affect trash collection. Jason will discuss this with the landlord.
Bernardo Iglesias gave the tournament report. There are two 2-day tournaments in our next six-month schedule. Prizes are now explicitly based on entries. Bernardo has also added Sunday quick-chess tournaments. Natasha Christiansen is sponsoring a women's tournament. The Early Bird tournament will have a strict 6:00 start time from here on out. /p>
Jason Rihel reported that he has set up an e-mail forwarding service from the main BCC account to his account.
Charles Riordan raised the issue of setting consistent guidelines for the allocation of prizes in our tournaments. Bernardo will examine the issue.
Carey Theil and Charles Riordan proposed limiting the number of year-round free entries given as prizes for winning the Club Championship. In the past, we have given out multiple free entries to players who tied as co-champions. Carey proposed only giving out one free entry per championship. In the event of a tie between two players who would not otherwise be given free entry to club tournaments (i.e., who are not IMs or GMs), the board agreed that a playoff should be held to determine who gets the free entry. The board agreed that the best playoff system to use is the system used in the 2010 US Championship. In the unlikely event that more than two co-champions will be eligible for the free-entry prize, a round-robin Armageddon tournament will be held.
The Board discussed our current Championship cycle qualification rules. Jason noted that the easiest way to avoid the problems we had last year would be to use June ratings for all players participating in Championship cycle tournaments (Weaver Adams, Haupturnier, and BCC Championship). Since the Weaver Adams is fast approaching, the board decided to keep the Championship cycle qualification rules in place for this year, and to revisit the issue next year.
Jason agreed to make copies of keys to the club for various board members who need them.
Alex Cherniack volunteered to host an adult beginners course for six weeks in the summer, to be held at the BCC. This will be a free clinic, probably held on Tuesdays (Alex will coordinate the final dates with Bernardo). We will advertise to as broad an audience as we can in June, and hold the clinic in July and August.
Alex agreed to add PayPal to our website, as soon as he gets the necessary bank information from Bob and Bernardo. We will only use it for donations to start, but may use it for tournament entries later on if we are comfortable with the service.
Jason asked the board to earmark $600 for the purchase of new chairs for the club. The board unanimously agreed.
Jason, Carey and Charles presented the report of the Moving Committee. Carey has been in contact with lenders at Wainwright Bank, who are willing to help us assess the feasibility of buying property. The committee members will meet with a Wainwright representative once we obtain the required financial statements from Bob.
The board discussed the possibility of inviting Larry Christiansen to give a lecture on the 2010 US Championship, perhaps on June 23rd. Natasha agreed to present the idea to Larry.
The next board meeting will take place on Wednesday, July 21st at 7:00.
Any e-mails relating to club business should have Jason Rihel cc’ed.
We currently have 150 members and $13, 783 in savings (not including deposits). A total of 241 different players have played in at least one of our tournaments this year, through mid-July. Attendance dropped during the month of the flood, but is back to normal levels.
Our PayPal account is up and running, and we have started to receive donations through the account. The BCF blog and website both have the PayPal application.
Carey Theil suggested that we look into the possibility of switching to Wainwright Bank, which is local and friendly to non-profits. Jason will talk to Bob Oresick about this possibility.
Jason suggested that we offer a discount for internet entry for our $10 Open on September 25th, as a way of testing the feasibility of using PayPal for tournament entries. The board unanimously approved the idea. Jason and Bernardo Iglesias will coordinate and promote the tournament.
The name of our tournament on October 9th will be changed to reflect the fact that it takes place on National Chess Day.
Bernardo will locate a file he created codifying rules for tournament directors, and will post it in the club. Bernardo confirmed that prizes must be posted after round 2 for all tournaments.
Charles will start creating a master list of new rules made during the past year, for club reference.
Charles reported that the roster and schedule has been set for the New England Nor’easters, the new US Chess League team. The team is grateful for the opportunity to hold matches at the BCC. Jason and Charles will coordinate a network test to make sure that the club can provide simultaneous internet access for at least four computers. Jason mentioned that the club might be able to borrow a projector to show ongoing games to in-house spectators.
Carey reported for that any future ownership of property would require a down payment of roughly $50,000. Should the club choose to explore ownership of property, we would need to create a long-term plan to raise funds.
Jason reported that the club has replaced all of the items stolen during the recent break-in. The locks have also been replaced. Files from the stolen computer had been backed-up on a separate disk, so we did not lose any data.
The board discussed protocol regarding coaches who use the club to conduct chess lessons. Charles proposed that coaches be charged $2 per hour for use of the club, to cover overhead. A sign-up sheet clearly explaining the new rule will be posted; coaches will sign themselves up for times they wish to use the club. The motion passed unanimously.
Our next meeting will be the Annual Membership Meeting, during which elections will be held. It will take place on Tuesday, September 28th at 7:00 pm. Jason volunteered to send out a “State-of-the-State” letter to our members before the next meeting.