Grass Roots Events Announcement—NAPs and GNTs
From Margot Hennings, District 6 (D6) Representative to the ACBL Board of Directors
For questions, please contact Bill Cole, D6 Grass Roots Coordinator at colebridge@aol.com, or Margot at district6director@acbl.org
The ACBL Board met on its biweekly conference call with Management this Wednesday, April 29, 2020. After discussion, we reluctantly agreed that the following will govern the 2019/2020 Grand National Teams (GNTs) and the 2020/2021 North American Pairs (NAPs). All NAP district finals have been held, but only about half the districts have been able to hold their GNT district finals (all before state stay-at-home orders were in effect) and are scrambling to try and figure out how to do so in our current corona virus environment that prohibits face-to-face play. In fairness to all district players and planners, we wanted to make this decision sooner rather than later.
The 2019-2020 GNT National Final will not be held.
- Therefore, Districts that have completed their district finals may choose to send those teams to the National Final at the Providence NABC in the summer of 2021 or may restart from scratch. This is a District option, not the ACBL’s.
- About half the districts have completed their 2019-2020 competitions, while the other half have not. District 6 is unique in that one of our four flights (6000) has completed its competition, while the remaining three (Championship, B, and C) all have teams that have advanced to the second weekend of our District Finals. The D6 Grass Roots Committee recognizes the implications of whatever decisions it makes as to how best to address the issue of our D6 representation at the Summer 2021 GNT National Final. Therefore, the Committee will weigh the options and make a decision in the coming months.
- All decisions are dependent on there being a GNT qualifying period for 20/21 (September 2020 through February 2021), but since this is such an extended period of time, the hope is that at least the later months will offer face-to-face opportunities again.
The 2020-2021 NAP season is canceled.
- Therefore, the qualifiers from the 2019-2020 NAP season will play their National Final at the St. Louis NABC in March 2021 and will receive their travel awards if they attend.
- This decision is being made by ACBL, and is not open to interpretation or change by the Districts. If anyone who is currently on the roster to represent D6 in St. Louis will no longer be eligible in the flight they won at the time the National Final is held (due to exceeding masterpoint limit or not living within D6 geographic boundaries), they will be grandfathered in and allowed to play as if the National Final had been held this year. D6 will augment the ACBL travel awards in the same manner as they would have for this year.