Hello District 6 Bridge Players
I want to bring you up to date with what has been happening in District 6 during the past several months.
First, on-line bridge has continued to be where we play nearly all of our bridge. We don’t know when face-to-face-bridge will return, but we have been planning as best we can. As you may have read in the ACBL bulletin, we expect that face-to-face bridge will return in a “bottom up” fashion – first at local clubs, then at Sectionals, followed by Regionals, etc. If vaccination efforts continue as planned, we can expect to see things opening up some time during mid-to-late summer – it will all depend on when we feel safe to return to face-to-face bridge.
Our Regional plans are becoming clearer – we have now cancelled Richmond, Reston and Baltimore this year, and we anticipate cancelling Cambridge as well. Our decisions are driven by restrictions on holding large gatherings and the financial impracticalities of holding a Regional where attendance is much smaller than usual leading to the District incurring penalties of tens of thousands of dollars. We are planning and anticipating a return to a “normal” schedule in 2022. We are gradually renegotiating our contracts to lessen our financial exposure in the case of much smaller attendance. We have been successful! We just signed a contract with the Doubletree hotel in Williamsburg for a Regional in late February 2022, where we will have a much smaller financial commitment. We are confident this tournament will be a success – assuming the threat from COVID has subsided by then. The slowness of our negotiations is largely driven by the fact that most of our contacts in hotels have been furloughed and it takes a lot of time to reach people and enter negotiations. Many thanks are due to Shawn Stringer and Jane Farthing for their efforts in this area.
You may also have read that the 2022 Summer NABC will not occur in Washington DC, because the playing site, the Marriott Wardman Park, has gone bankrupt, and no other suitable and available location could be found in the Washington DC area. So, Shawn is negotiating with the Hyatt in Reston to see if we can hold a Regional there in 2022 – if we can’t have an NABC maybe we can have a Regional!! We will keep you informed as negotiations progress.
In other areas, the GNTs are progressing well. There have been substantial sized fields in all the Flights, and it has been quite a task to arrange for so many team games to be set up on BBO. Many thanks to Bill Cole, Lucy McCoy, and our director, Chris Miller for making this happen. In addition, Zoom will be used in some of the later matches – this is a security issue to inhibit cheating – a sad but necessary step given the experience of the past year. Joe Hertz has done a lot of work figuring out how to most easily integrate this with BBO, organizing and testing the set up – many thanks are due to him.
Each year, some Districts receive money from the ACBL Charity Foundation and the Districts get to choose where to donate the money – the only restriction being it can’t go to bridge related activities. This year, District 6 received $30,000. Our board of Directors met and unanimously decided to donate the money to foodbanks across the District. The donations went out in December and we have received many thank you letters. Many thanks to board members for identifying the worthy charities.
Finally, in the past couple of months, we have helped arrange broader access to on-line bridge for our less experienced players. In particular, Jay Whipple, former ACBL President, has set up an on-line night-time 99er game – many 99ers find it difficult to locate a decent sized game and Jay’s initiative is filling a gap. We have worked with clubs throughout District 6 to get their players signed up for this game. Also, District 7 is now offering free on-line bridge courses. We have informed clubs regarding this initiative and they can disseminate this information to their players. Please feel free to contact me, your club or unit if you want further information in this area.
Stay safe – and I hope to see you across a bridge table some-time later this year.
David Rodney President, ACBL District 6