Every three years, our District governing bridge in New York City and Long Island needs to elect the three Advisory Council representatives. Think of the Advisory Council as the House of Representatives. They meet on zoom at least 3 times a year around the same time as the three NABCs and reviews ACBL Board of Director motions, sometimes resulting in modification or reconsideration of such motions.
In practice, serving on this all-volunteer body allows one to learn a lot more about what is going on in the higher levels of ACBL management, and even join a specific committee to give direct input to major decision makers. For example, AC members Jeff Bayone and Silvani Morici were previously on the Teachers & Club Owners Committee. Lee Lin has served on the Masterpoints Committee and observer on the Competitions and Conventions Committee.
One can incept real changes by joining. In the past two years, ACBL modified gold rush events and NAP / GNT Flight C to use the Basic+ Chart instead of the Basic Chart, introduced security tablets for the final stages of high level events, unified ways to account for players with international and non-ACBL playing experience, proposed Masterpoint inflation adjustments to the Flight B/C brackets, and reworked bracketing rules for teams who wish to play up. These ideas all originated from committees containing Advisory Council members.
How To Run – Email by May 31st, 2024
At the moment, you might even be able to run unopposed! If interested email elections@acbl.org to declare your candidacy – you don’t have to prepare any campaign materials at this time. Also, give your unit officers a heads up (either your Unit 155 or Unit 242 president and VP). You do not need to be on your local Unit board to run, although the Unit board meetings are probably one of the best ways to share info upstream and downstream.
If you are shy about elections, don’t worry. Several of us have been on the AC for quite a number of years and will gladly make room for an eager new volunteer.