Minutes of a Meeting of the NEBA Executive Committee held in the Conference Suite of 1 Alwinton Terrace, courtesy of Mr Ian Spoors, 12th October 2007 at 7.30pm.

Present: Pauline Durie, Chairman; Ken Spragg, Deputy Chairman; Sue Caygill, Treasurer; Ian Rankin, Chief Tournament Secretary; Ian Spoors, NEBA Rep to the EBU: Bev Godfrey, Congress Secretary; Mike Baker, Secretary.

Apologies: Chris Benneworth

1. Minutes of the last Meeting (11 Jun 07)
The minutes were accepted as a true record.

2. Matters arising
Item 2b. Ian Spoors reported that 100 packs of the cards purchased from Holland had been sold to Surrey at a beneficial price.

3. Minutes of the last Council Meeting
The Chairman said that she thought the minutes captured the essence of the comments made concerning the EBU proposals. She accepted that several of those present had expressed the view in para 2a lines 5 & 6 concerning priority of events, but was not sure this was a view held by Council in general. She will address the issue at the next Council meeting in January.

4. Northern Bridge League
(NBL) Ian Rankin said that a number of problems have arisen during the season which need resolving. The A team has played only 1 match this season, and we will not be entering an A team in the last match this year. The NBL organiser has been informed. The pool of players for this level were unable to field a team of 8 for a number of reasons, including travelling time and distance, both in absolute terms, and in relation to the 32 board matches. There had been difficulties with the U-25 team as fixtures had been scheduled for university vacations and our pool of U-25s is drawn mainly from Durham University. Members of the B & C teams enjoyed their participation in the NBL and wished NEBA to continue at these levels. There had been no C team captain appointed for the current season which had increased the workload on an already busy Chief Tournament Secretary (CTS), resulting in some inevitable delays in asking for availability and notifying players of their selection. After prolonged and constructive discussion it was agreed that;

a. NEBA would not enter an A team for the next season, but the B and C teams would continue, as would the U-25 when vacations (and even exams!) permitted.

b. Ian Rankin was appointed overall co-ordinator for the three teams. A co-ordinator would be appointed for each of the 3 teams and they would work through him.

c. The C team would retain the same 8 for their last match of this season, following their splendid victory in the penultimate round.

d. The treasurer had received a bill for £48 from Brierfield for food when our team had cancelled on the Friday morning. At the time, there was neither rule nor precedent to cover this situation. The committee felt it should have been possible to cancel with the caterers on Friday morning, and were unwilling to accept liability for the outstanding amount. As a gesture of goodwill, it was decided to pay half the cost (£24) without prejudice.  The treasurer undertook to remit the payment.

5. County Matches
Clive Owen had proposed that as the A team was not participating in the NBL next season, 2 matches should be arranged against a York Select team, one match to be at St Georges, and the other at York. He said that the York club had offered to provide a trophy. Ian Spoors said that he regretted the passing of the friendly matches against Yorkshire and Cumbria, and applauded any private effort to afford practice for our potential Tollemache players. The Committee concurred.

6. New Computer
Ian Spoors stated he is about to get an additional machine, which should be in situ for the Congress.

7. EBU Report
Ian Spoors reported that the EBU AGM had been a curiously tedious occasion, with little of note arising. Malcolm Oliver had been elected to the Board. It is proposed that the Premier League be reintroduced. Regarding national selection he said that although sponsor-seeking is banned the selection committee has reserved the right to raise additional funds if necessary. He will raise this issue at the next Shareholders’ meeting as we need to know more of what is intended.

The matter of the new Strategy document was closely controlled. Each shareholder was allowed a little less than 2 minutes to state his or her case with neither argument nor discussion to follow. Most counties appeared to be of a like mind with NEBA – uncommitted, with county executives broadly in favour, but their member clubs less so. It was obvious that counties with the higher percentage EBU membership were keener than those with a low EBU membership take-up, and the better-informed counties were more in favour than those where myths and rumours had been rife. Some counties, who had been against the proposals on arrival at the meeting, changed their views during the afternoon.

 Several issues were addressed.

 a. The EBU admitted that they had calculated the P2P fee on the assumed number of tables during the year based on Masterpoints (MPs) issued. Having subsequently discovered many clubs hold sessions where no MPs are awarded it was realised the figure used was a significant underestimation, and as a consequence the P2P may be considerably lower, as the proposals are intended to be revenue neutral. To this end counties are asked to trawl the clubs to ascertain the genuine figure for tables per year played in their clubs, and to inform the EBU as soon as possible. The secretary undertook to contact clubs, consolidate the returns, and to inform the EBU.

 b. Speakers were unhappy that the £5 one-off fee for new members had been dropped, as it meant the freeloaders escape.

 c. Frequent players would appear to be penalised under new proposals. This is being reviewed. Outside the meeting the editor of English Bridge had asked Ian to commission an article from an NEBA member explaining why he (or she) thought club bridge is expensive at the moment. The member must be prepared to be named.

 d. The timetable for presentation of final proposals has been compressed at the request of the shareholders, and alternative proposals are to be ready for discussion and voting upon by June 2008. It has not yet been decided how the counties would receive their members’ subscriptions. Sue Caygill expressed her concern at what seemed an unnecessary rush.

8. Congress
The Congress secretary said that entries were rather slow at the moment, and Ian Spoors suggested it would be beneficial in future to maintain a log of entries against time. It was agreed that Ken Pattison would prepare the boards for the juniors, both those playing Bridge for the Sinclair Cup, and those playing for the NEBA Minibridge trophy.

9. Any Other Business
a. The Secretary said that the Webmaster had told him he was reworking the NEBA website within the next week as it had become large and unmanageable, and a lot of the current information would be dumped. The Secretary said he felt the information on the website should be archived and suggested an external hard drive should be purchased for that purpose. All agreed on the excellent job Neil Aiston does, and after some discussion it was agreed that the information should be archived, and that the webmaster should decide what format to use, and to go ahead with it. It was suggested that the possible use of X Drive should be investigated.

b.  The CTS requested that NEBA purchase some memory sticks for his Tournament secretaries to use to archive their material. It was agreed, and the CTS was tasked to proceed, as he felt fit.

c.   The Secretary said he had written to Clive Owen to convey NEBA’s congratulations on achieving the rank of Premier Grand Master – the first NEBA player so to do, and had also written to Malcolm Oliver congratulating him on his election to the EBU Board.

d.   The treasurer stated that at a recent NEBA event Durham students had been charged half price, and she was unaware of such concessionary rates. It was confirmed there is no concessionary rates for anyone at NEBA events, and the rate charged had been an error. The secretary undertook to convey this to the Durham university captain so his members would not expect a repeat occurrence.

10. Date of Next Meeting A mutually convenient date will be agreed in the New Year, and the meeting will take place at St Georges.

There being no further business, the committee thanked Ian for his generous hospital, the meeting was closed at about 11.15pm, and the gathering dispersed.(M J Baker) Hon. Sec.

Minutes approved at Exec meeting 02 May 08