Selina has performed competently and enthusiastically as district chairman for the North American Pairs, an event in which players begin at the club level and continue through district finals. The district winners of each three flights are rewarded with a subsidized trip to the Spring NABC and the chance to compete against no more than 24 other district winning pairs for a national championship. You've got to like the odds. Organizing and operating this event at the district level requires a lot of work, beginning with Conditions of Contest, publicity, enlisting and organizing the clubs and ending with supervising the district finals and sending the winners on their way to the NABC finals.
Selina has constantly encouraged the ACBL to provide more publicity and support for this popular event. At least they have started calling it by its correct name. It's North American Pairs, or NAP, not North American Open Pairs, abbreviated as NAOP. Although if began life as an open event, there have been three flights for many years. I suppose North American Flighted Pairs would be technically correct, but the acronym NAFP is a bit more difficult rolling off the tongue than NAP.
Jim, an almost retired attorney from Santa Fe, has chaired the district's appeals coordinating committee as well as our finance committee. The district has an District Appellate Committee and a District Disciplinary Committee, whose members cannot also be members of the District Board. Jim's role is to organize and advise those committees. He has often provided much-needed interpretation of the ACBL's extremely complex codes.
As you might have guessed, the District Finance Committee is responsible for overseeing the district's financial operations, including frequent audits of the districts books, as well as providing valuable input on our financial direction. The committee also spends a lot of time reviewing regional tournament reports.
Ginny Johnston is the District Election Secretary, which puts her in charge of the annual election of District Board Members. Nine of our members represent only one unit, and they are chosen by their respective unit boards. Another five members represent and are elected by multiple units, e.g. Colorado-at-Large. If anyone can come with a better title for a board member representing, for example, all of Colorado other than Denver, please let me know. The "at-large" makes sounds too much like a fugitive from justice.
Down through the years the district has developed stringent rules for elections, and Ginny has done a perfect job of seeing that they are scrupulously followed without abandoning common sense. Occasionally, there are election disagreements that need to be resolved. The history of District 17 does include an occasional, but thankfully rare, election "irregularity". My favorite is from many years ago when I was not on the board. It seems that an election secretary refused to count the votes from one unit even though they were in her mailbox a few days before the deadline. Her grounds were that the District Bylaws said they had to be "received" before the deadline, and since she was off on vacation she had not actually "received" them until she got back home, which was after the deadline. Some kind of compromise was reached and the bylaws were amended.
Paul Ivaska is Chairman of the District's Regional Tournament Committee, whose responsibilities include the schedule of events at each regional. The committee devotes a great deal of time and effort in order to ensure that our tournaments provide the maximum amount of satisfaction to the maximum number of players. Not every player likes the same events as the next, so no matter what you do someone is certain to be less than totally satisfied. Over the last few years District 17 attendance has been very healthy, so maybe we're doing a good job. (2007 regional attendance in District 17 was up 1500 tables over 2006.)
We owe our thanks to all four departing board members. Elections are almost completed, and we look forward to welcoming our new members, whose terms will begin at our March 2008 board meeting.
2008 will be an exciting year for bridge in District 17. Not only will we have an extra regional, but the Summer NABC's will be in Las Vegas. The calendar starts with Albuquerque in January, the Tucson I/N Regional in mid-February, and the Las Vegas Regional beginning February 25th. We should, including the NABC, easily surpass 30,000 tables of action (several ACBL districts have less than 4,000 per year). Almost a quarter of a million masterpoints will be won in our district. Make sure you get your share.