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« on: April 25, 2017, 07:32:44 AM »
I asked members to come here and tell us WHY they want the club, where are they?
About 4 years ago(? a while anyway) I got an expert to come in once a week to be a resource for people who were playing in IAC at a designated time, someone who would be available to discuss/clarify questions as they came up. Nobody ever asked!!! even when it was clear there was confusion, they wouldn't call him over and say they were confused as to what to do or what the bid meant or what their lead should be, nothing! Even when gently and privately the suggestion was made in case they had forgotten why he was there ( or even that he WAS there) people wouldn't ask him for help.
When the guest got tired of wandering around the tables without anything to do he started to initiate interaction and offered some input. Unfortunately fairly soon after he started doing this, he chose to use as a discussion point a bid which the bidder was not only totally content with, but willing to do battle with anyone who might suggest there might have been a better one for whatever reason. It was an awful situation and although the expert, who is a top player in his country, was philosophical about it I was appalled. In any case, if nobody was willing to engage around issues then there was really little point in asking him to give of his time. So that stopped after about a month.
This lack of engagement is what makes me reluctant to look for more teachers. We have a minimal number of people show up, given we are back up to around 900 members again. It's like drawing teeth, usually, to get anyone to sit at the table. This has been true for a very long time, it was even true for both Shep and Hondo, and more supportive, gentle teachers it is hard to imagine. Members have been suspended from the club for interfering with or making public derogatory remarks to or about the players at the table in a teaching session and that hasn't been an issue in any of the teaching sessions I've been at for a very very long time. So it's got nothing to do with fear of abuse if they get something wrong. So why won't people sit at a teaching table?
Grant said a number of months ago he could get another expert and we could set up a table with people playing with him and his guest. with private commentary to the kibs about what they were doing and why. I'd love to do that but haven't pursued it because I've lost faith that anyone but me would sit ( and I feel I should be in the back of the line). It's unfair and insulting that these people offer their time and then have to twiddle their thumbs because people want to be coaxed into playing.
We have tried tourneys in the middle of the night. We tried running evening tourneys 3 times a week for several months, none of the people who asked for evening tourneys ever played in any of them, although not infrequently they were playing robot tourneys or even in other BBO tourneys when the IAC tourneys were on. Brenda tried running tourneys at 4 am Eastern so the Australian etc contingent could play, we only got a scant handful of people, not enough to run a tourney, and who in any case often already played in the other tourneys we were offering. The other day when Sanya cancelled her tourney for lack of registrations there were at least 50-60 members logged into BBO.
Aside from that people USED to show up for these! Dulci was getting between 16 and 20 tables, I was getting 12+ on Monday and Saturday. Now we are relieved to get half that number. Why? there are ALWAYS IAC members online elsewhere in BBO. Many members are highly particular about who they play with and will refuse invitations, which is offputting for players, I don't know what if anything can be done about that. Perhaps they aren't playing because they are bored with meeting the same players every time, the regulars whose support make trying to offer events and so forth worthwhile?
Some don't like having to wait for the clocked tourneys, but unclocked are difficult with small tourneys and end up with players playing the same opps again...and then sometimes having to wait even longer tor a slower pair to catch up; so until and unless the numbers pick up that just isn't practical. So some have left because the tourneys are too slow and others because they felt pressured to finish the hands on time. To solve the issue we need more players, so it's like a dog chasing its tail.
Opening the tourney to the general public is problematic for the director it offers any more players, to be sure, but many of those are rude or runners or both. It's not fun looking for 5 or ten subs every time the round changes, if you can even find that many subs willing to play.
I personally think 5 board tourneys, which someone has twice suggested, are a bizarre idea and not worth my time so I'm not interested in asking anyone else to give up their time to do it either. People have asked for Speedballs, so we tried those, one a week for a while: after the first couple apparently the novelty wore off and people stopped coming out for them either, including the people who had asked for them.
Some have told me they are super busy at the moment, fair enough. Some have said they can't negotiate the new BBO, I tell them how AND refer them to Sanya's excellent notes. Sometimes we see them occasionally after that. Mostly they want to make sure they are still members but we never see them in the club or in any club events.
WHY do they want to belong to the club? How did some of them come to even notice that BBO had dropped them out of the club and why did they care? It's a total mystery.