Dear Unit 131 Members, I am writing to you on behalf of the Unit 131 Board of Directors. We want to keep you updated on what is going on with duplicate bridge and group bridge lessons in the greater Kansas City area. Many of you have played in some of the 9 weekly games hosted by the Bridge Studio. From mid-March through July there were not any in-person bridge or lessons at the Bridge Studio, as well as most other clubs in our Unit. In August, the Bridge Studio started in-person bridge 3 days a week but has only had 3 or sometime 4 tables. Our best estimate is that we will not get back to normal or near normal in-person bridge for 9 – 12 months and only after there is a widely available safe and effective vaccine certified by medical experts.
As you may have heard, Lee Goodman, who has owned the Bridge Studio for the past 15 years or so, has decided to stop paying the lease rent on the Bridge Studio as of October 31st. The likelihood is that the landlord will evict him and try to rent out that space. Lee made two proposals to the Board: 1) For the Unit to buy him out of the Bridge Studio and take over its ownership or 2) For the Unit to take over the lease and pay the rent. Your Unit 131 Board met by Zoom on Tuesday, October 20th. Following discussion of the situation and consideration of Lee’s proposals, the Board determined that it would not be in the interest of the Unit and its members to accept either proposal which would obligate the Unit for upwards of $50,000 for the next year with little prospect of any income to offset the costs. Therefore, the Board voted, without dissent, to reject both proposals.
Looking toward the future, we have established a Bridge Center Exploratory Task Force chaired by Norman Kahn with Tom Cranshaw as vice-chair plus 8 other members. This task force will investigate non-profit bridge centers in other cities around the country with the goal of developing a plan for a non-profit bridge center for our Unit.
We would find your input valuable regarding this. Please feel free to contact me at baruchk@aol.com or 913-681-5001, Norman Kahn at nkahnmd@gmail.com or 913-991-2938, Tom Cranshaw at tomcranshaw58@gmail.com or 816-225-1813, or any Board member (see listing and contact information on page 1 of our new Bridge Directory which you should have received by mail earlier this month. If you did not receive one, please contact Tom Cranshaw.
We only have valid email addresses for about 70% of our members. If you know of any member who does not have their email address on the ACBL website, please share this information with them and please urge them to log in to the ABCL website and enter their email address so that we can communicate with them in the future. Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Stay safe and let us know how we can help you,
Bar Kaelter
Unit 131 President
On behalf of the Unit Board