Tri-City Duplicate Bridge Club - an anecdotal history - by Kirk Roberts

Tri-City has been affiliated with the American contract bridge league from as far back as the 1960s with members from Crescent City, California, and Brookings and Gold Beach in Oregon. It ran games in Brookings as a central point of travel.

The Crescent City group was originally the largest with 25 to 30 active players. Brookings had fewer, but has since become the largest. Gold Beach had the fewest, but also managed to run their own game with 3 to 4 tables until around 2015.

Dorothea, (Dottie) Ellis was the longtime Director/manager of the unit and ran the club until 2017 when she became ill. The club which is member owned, then became volunteer (non- compensated), run with a club manager and several directors as well as a Board of Directors and is a 501(c) tax exempt entity.

Until 2017 the club was a part of unit 480 of district 20 which included Bandon, Coos Bay and North Bend, Oregon. Unit 20 covers Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and western Idaho.

For many years unti 2015, unit 480 was run by a Board from the Coos Bay area with little input from Brookings members. The primary reason for the Board's existence was to hold a sectional tournament at least once every two calendar years as an ACBL sanctioned requirement.

This was a manpower, intensive project, and the board faced a declining membership workforce in Coos Bay. They declined to schedule the required event. It should be noted that Tri-City made a substantial cash contribution for food and cost in lieu of manpower.

In 2015, the board had ceased to function, and Brookings director, Kirk Roberts engineered a takeover with the goal of disbanding the unit and re-affiliating clubs with nearby units. With ACBL approval, the Coos Bay club went to the Florence unit and Tri-City went with Grants Pass/ Roseburg clubs (unit 481).

Per ACBL directive, the unit 480 treasury was divided on a per capita basis and approximately $2200 went to unit 481 as our buy-in. This money is designated for unit wide activities, such as tournaments, as well as for education in bringing in new members, such as LBID (Learn Bridge in a Day. The unit receives a portion of annual dues which is a nominal amount, and may also be reimbursed by ACBL for certain expenses. Its only source of revenue would be any profit derived from holding a a tournament - at best a break, even proposition due to site rental, Director fees, and other expenses.

TriCity continues to tap the initial $2200 for LBIAD expenses while the other clubs in unit 481 have not. The unit 481 board is based in Grants Pass with Tri-City and Roseburg presidents as ex officio members.

Tri-City has physically been in multiple locations in Brookings/Harbor: the waterworks pre-2003, Saint Timothy's Episcopal Church, 2003-2018, and since 2018 the Chetco Activity Center, CAC.

Prior to the move to CAC, the club paid $125 per month rent to Saint Timothy’s, $1500 per year. We now pay CAC an annual fee of $25 per active member which is also a membership in CAC and all its other activities. In addition, we no longer pay a daily game Director fee or club manager fee and provide these services as volunteers. This cost was around $200 per month.

As a result, our daily game fee has stayed at four dollars per session since 2012 compared to other clubs’ fees that are $8 to $10 per session and we are also able to make annual charitable donations to member approved 501 C3 nonprofits.