Went to your website:
So that's where Steve DeVico and Gail Covey are hiding!

Jeff, Don,
OK…Say we get the data. Then what? Let's face it, we really don't have much of a clue about how our game will ever get promoted on a grand scale. As Jeff points out, one size doesn't fit all. What works on Manhattan's upper East Side, may not resonate in a retirement community or in a rural setting. I happen to know that it doesn't even resonate as far as my club on the West side of Manhattan.

I can live with an hour, even two.

Maybe not left to die, but tackled differently.

A more in depth study would show exactly what you think it would. How about skipping that and getting to the part about what to do about it?

I couldn't have said it better myself. Perhaps we influenced a couple of Board members the other day into not voting to reorganize just yet. Not until this issue is tackled. One hopes.

And a smaller Board not having the skill set needed to run this organization will be beneficial exactly how?
That's the point so many of us want tackled. Expertise represented in all areas. If that takes 9, 13, or 25 so be it.

Joke.

Homework. What we do is assign just five hands for them to work on over and over until they can “see” the way to play it without actually needing to play it out. Hand recognition.

Have you tried integrating it into your lessons? Especially your beginner lessons.

ACBL membership and tournament attendance is falling and long term stinks. Why would 13 people with no real understanding of why, be better than 25?

How many would there have been had you not announced you were directing?

Nope.

Sorry Kevin, I don't understand the question.

Thank you Russ. I very much enjoyed sitting in for Al Levy a while back. By session's end, I believe everyone appreciated the benefit provided from having someone at the table who had not come up through the Unit ranks.

Having sat through that meeting, it now leaves me wondering what the full BOD will be doing with all the extra time on their hands once the plan to transition non-core topics off the BOD gets implemented. I imagine it will be to tackle core topics. But with no marketing experts, no full time teachers, no club representation on the BOD, exactly what will that plan look like?

Creating new tournament players is a core topic. At least it is on BW. In this area, our sanctioned clubs are vital. We teach and we provide jobs for many up and coming young experts who wish to devote themselves full time to bridge. There are close to seventy full time professional players, and another dozen staff members, in NYC alone, who depend on the clubs for their livelihood. Today, online bridge and club bridge combine to provide a powerful one-two punch. We cover just about everyone wanting to play and provide jobs for our pro players.

If you buy into this, then you are well aware that half of that ecosystem, our member clubs, is dying. Not so much in some of our major cities and retirement communities, but everywhere else.

From the club owners' perspective, the problem is not in our stars, but in ourselves. The very structure of the ACBL pits clubs against tournaments. The more successful the tournaments, the less successful the clubs. It also works in reverse. A club that offers comfort and a friendly competitive game and stays open during local tournaments, draws heavily from those tournaments.

Before tackling marketing, tackling this basic tournament/club issue needs serious thought. It is tearing at the fabric of our game. A huge number of clubs are about to go under. I've traveled much of the country. Like our farms, way too many clubs are run by, and populated with, players who will not be able to carry on much longer. Without a viable plan in place for how to make our ecosystem function properly, there will no no one wanting to take their place. Nor will there be a need.

Marketing is good. But creating interest, and then not being able to back it up because no clubs exist for interested people to go to, makes little sense.

There are seventy profession players in the NYC area. Most intend on devoting their lives to the game. Many are under 45 with long lives ahead of them. Many are wonderful teachers. None want anything to do with opening a bridge club. Not a one. And these are among the best, the brightest, the most energetic people on the planet. They are also among the most logical and they just don't see the logic in it.

How do we get those 25 Unit members to understand that?

I agree. No matter how attractive folding tables look, they are still folding tables. Set up against our more solid and no more attractive permanent tables, these Stakmore tables just don't stack up well. They look and feel less substantial. Also, coffee and soda cups are more prone to shaking or being knocked over entirely when the table is bumped.

Here's my dream center based table. Found it yesterday by accident. This one is only 24 square. Wonder if Christner makes them larger. If they do, imagine how much fun it would be to start looking for chairs that would work with them. Talk about creating a look!!
https://www.wayfair.com/furniture/pdp/wrought-studio-christner-dining-table-vark4830.html?piid=27276926&experiencetype=2&selectedvertical=11

The base needs to be very heavy which makes moving them to vacuum very difficult.

What I didn't like is that fully half those interviewed were high sixties and above.