April 2021 - 9

A MESSAGE

FROM THE

PRESIDENT

AMERICAN CONTRACT
BRIDGE LEAGUE
PRESIDENT

Georgia Heth
CHAIR, BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Suzi Subeck
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Joe Jones
CHAIR, BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Doug Couchman
Board of Directors
District 1 * Leo Weniger
District 2 * Gim Ong
District 3 * Carlos Muñoz
District 4 * Joann Glasson
District 5 * Brian Ellis
District 6 * Margot Hennings
District 7 * Mike Kovacich
District 8 * Georgia Heth
District 9 * Jeff Overby
District 10 * Ned Irving
District 11 * A.J. Stephani
District 12 * Dennis Carman
District 13 * Suzi Subeck
District 14 * Deana Liddy
District 15 * Warren Smith
District 16 * Paul Cuneo
District 17 * Cindy Shoemaker
District 18 * David Johnson
District 19 * Tim White
District 20 * Laurie Rowe
District 21 * Stu Goodgold
District 22 * David Lodge
District 23 * Kevin Lane
District 24 * David Moss
District 25 * Bob Bertoni
To contact a district director,
visit acbl.org/boardofdirectors.

Spring has arrived and most of us are still stuck in front of our
computers if we want to play bridge. But at least now we have hope of
returning to the tables later this year. I think very few people thought
the restrictions caused by the pandemic would last so long. The
ACBL's approach has been conservative, especially for
tournaments, which the public health officials with
whom we had to deal, agreed would be super-spreader
events. The reopening of face-to-face bridge will
look different depending on where you live, and will
depend very much on local conditions. Just as many of
our members refused to play online, we have members
who plan to play online only once face-to-face bridge
resumes. I hope that conditions improve enough
that everyone will be willing to return to face-to-face
bridge eventually, but it takes some people much lonGEORGIA HETH
ger to do so than others.
All departments of the ACBL have been involved in our response to
the pandemic. Bridge operations and IT have mostly been involved
with the development and maintenance of online bridge. Marketing,
which also oversees all communications, including the Bridge
Bulletin, education, school bridge and management of NABCs, has
been pushed to the limits with all of the issues they handled. The
Recorder's office and the disciplinary department had to deal with
conditions not envisioned by our regulations. All department heads
have been involved in planning our response to the pandemic. The one
thing each of these people and departments have in common is they all
stepped up to the plate and devoted themselves to doing the best they
could to keep bridge and the ACBL alive. I believe we all owe them our
sincere thanks.
The last groups I would like to thank are our volunteers and members. Our volunteers have had to deal with all of the same uncertainties
that ACBL management did, plus waiting for the ACBL to announce
its policies. And I truly appreciate all of the members who stayed with
us, maintaining their memberships whether or not they were playing
bridge. We have had a membership decline, but not as much as it could
have been.
I hope I am not being overly optimistic, and that the reopening does
occur this year. It would be so nice to see bridge players in person
rather than on a Zoom screen.

April 2021 | Bridge Bulletin | 9

http://www.acbl.org/boardofdirectors

April 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2021