I don’t understand how the ACBL can ignore their responsibility. Their silence seems to indicate they have no defense. How can an organization be unaccountable for so much money being non-used or mis-used. Have they no conscience? Certainly doesn’t bode well for the future of the game or their reputation as The Untouchables.

I agree with Burt. How can an organization as large as the ACBL totally ignore the public revelation that Mr. Pender’s money is just sitting in his account serving no good and that apparently, long after the Pendergraph drifted into oblivion that money (over $10,000 as I recall) was used though the Pendergraph was long since gone. What has happened to the consciences of the people alleging to represent the ACBL. It is reminiscent of the Cabots speaking only to Lodges and the Lodges speaking only to God. The ACBL should open up about their lethargy and make up the gaffe to Mr. Pender. Honor him as he deserves!!!!

Elementary my dear Watsons!

Not one soul (including the CEO) would touch the issue with a ten foot pole. First, the CEO (who has ‘given notice’ as his term is up — and probably tolerated more than he expected to have to bear — dealing with the twenty-five sets of handcuffs) did take care of the long-in-arrears Juniors. In fairness to him, he did get the $27,500 Junior Trials Trophy nearly updated but stayed clear of the distasteful Pendergraph issue which was originally given to the ACBL but for tax reasons turned over to the Educational Foundation (with disbursements allegedly to be approved and issued by the ACBL). But — there are different versions of that! However, the records are hazy; the case is old; no one minded the store; apparently no one is quite sure what happened and their solution is to just close their eyes and hope it goes away.

I ASSURE YOU IT WON’T. THEY SHOULD TAKE THE $10,700 SITTING IN THE ACCOUNT AND ADD IT TO THE $11,400 USED WRONGLY IN 2005 AND 2006 FOR NON-PENDERGRAPH BENEFIT (ADDING UP TO ABOUT $22,000) AND COME UP WITH SOMETHING CLEVER AND DIFFERENT TO HONOR PETER PENDER.

Bobby (with Becky Rogers’ help) convinced Peter to make the total bequest of $77,500) SPECIFICALLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF COMMEMORATING HIS NAME AND FOR HIM TO BE REMEMBERED. SO MUCH FOR THAT!

THEY GOT OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT — THEN STOPPED. BUT IT IS NOT TOO LATE. A COMMITTEE SHOULD BE FORMED PRONTO AND FIND SOME IMPORTANT EVENT TO NAME AFTER PETER USING THE LEGITIMATE MONEY RIGHTFULLY LEFT IN HIS ACCOUNT/S I HOPE SOMEONE WITH AUTHORITY READING THIS HAS A CONSCIENCE. IT ONLY TAKES ONE KIND, UNDERSTANDING SOUL TO START THE BALL ROLLING RATHER THAN CONTINUE TO CLOSE THEIR EYES TO THE SWINDLE AND TOTAL INDIFFERENCE TO THE ISSUE.

Judy Kay-Wolff

HBJ : Is it possible for a quorum of concerned ACBL members to set up an extraordinary general meeting to deal with and thrash out this distressing matter for once and for all. Those on the current committee must be forced to do something or admit they don’t intend to do diddly squat. Procrastination and buck passing has to stop, and one way or another the matter needs to be properly resolved. In my eyes might is right, and although justice tends to go in favour of the strongest, an uprising is clearly called for !!

Dear HBJ:

The ACBL refuses to discuss the matter. I even attempted to speak with their legal counsel, Peter Rank, who was very polite, but said nothing other than the EF and ACBL are different entities — whatever that means. Neither take responsibilities for the other’s failings — yet to be determined who goofed. He said the ACBL had nothing to do with it and all disbursements were made by the EF. WELL, WHO CREATED THE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION? IT’S ALL A CROCK – WITH EACH POINTING THE FINGER AT THE OTHER.

Perhaps if an outside source such as yourself who cares about the best interests of the game sends on your comment above to Peter Rank, Legal Counsel; Craig Robinson, ACBL President; Jay Baum, CEO; and Florence Bedford, the head of the EF — we might get some answers and a SOLUTION — either return the money to Peter’s Residuary Estate or HONOR PETER AS HE HAD INTENDED.

Thanks for your interest. I appreciate your sensational comedic side, but your combined love for the ethics and morals of the game surpass it by a mile.

Judy

Obviously, this has been common knowledge to the ACBL Board but no one has the guts to make a concerted effort to get to the bottom of the problem and exert some effort to resolve the unused and misused portion of Peter’s $50,000 Donation. How can they live with themselves?

Better yet, someone who is present at the Board of Governors meeting should broach the subject. The public is entitled to know about it.

Judy, per legal counsel EF and ACBL may be different entities but that doesn’t mean that they are unrelated or that the EF needn’t comply with the not-for-profit laws or their own bylaws concerning “Special Meetings” (to which I believe HBJ was speaking).

Not-for-profit membership associations must provide a means for voting members to convene to address matters of concern. And, just such a vehicle exists for the EF (see the bylaws, Article !V, Section 3). The Voting Members of ACBL’s Educational Foundation are the sitting Directors of ACBL’s Board (a common arrangement, BTW, in membership associations). One-third of ACBL’s Board (EF’s Voting Members) is required to stipulate a Special Meeting of the Members of the EF, at which business can be legally conducted and which must be countenanced by the Trustees of the Educational Foundation.

So . . . get a third of ACBL’s Directors on board and a Special Meeting to address the Pender situation can be convened. (I know, not as easy as it sounds.)

Kim:

Great information.

Unfortunately, the ACBL refuses to officially ackowledge any communication from me regarding this matter, figuring eventually I will wear out and give up and meawhile they will keep their tidy little Pender nest egg of $10,700 and the unentitled expenditure of $11,400 spent long after the Pendergraph disappeared — and disburse it as they want when they want.

They are a real piece of work! I defy someone to tell me differently or get them off their fannies and do the right thing for a change. Peter has waited long enough!

.

It has become clear that the present day Board Of Directors could care less about the Peter Pender issue. In their minds that was yesterday’s news and not their business. I would think, however, that records could be traced back through the accounting ledgers of the organization. What happened to the fiduciary responsibilty of the controlling members?

I have nothing but outrage regarding the Pender situation and I will mention it to our BOD representative.

However, about getting boards properly moved, the players at each table should be summoning the caddy (or director) to transport the finished boards in a timely manner. This is especially important if you have one (or more) left when a stack is brought from the other table first and only those boards which you have completed are taken away. Once you have completed all boards that need to transported, be proactive and call the caddy over. This will help get the boards to their proper place on a timely basis and cut the chance of unplayed baords down. I think it IS the responsibility of the players to make this happen as it is a bookkeeping nightmare to ask the directors and caddies to keep records of what tables still have unmoved boards.

Similarly in a pairs game, it is RUDE to ask for boards before the round has been called, but when it is called, if you are still playing you should IMMEDIATELY move the boards you have finished.

Steve:

Sometimes you can call Caddy until you are blue in the face and no one comes. Players should be considerate about moving unplayed boards, but the CADDY should be on top of the situation and be on the look out for needed board/s.

Judy (and Bobby),

Just off the top of my head … how about naming the Newcomer of the Year at the three NABC’s the winner of The Peter Pender Memorial Newcomer Trophy. The winner would be the biggest accumulator of (Gold/Platinum) points at the NABC’s who hadn’t passed a certain threshold previously. And I’m perfectly happy to have that threshold be zero points. The race would be easy to publicize in the Summer and Fall Nationals. Certainly, the home town media of the contenders would be easy to get involved. And it might even get a few of the contenders to attend, where they might have passed on the (expensive) trip to the Fall NABC otherwise. It’s keeping with Peter’s backing up of young players. And if you only hand out a trophy, the cost will not be desimilar to the cost of the Junior Trials hardware administration costs. So, roughly $22K.

And you know, all the greats were mere novices once. Betcha we have a wide variety of big names and no-names by the time 2050 rolls around. But every one of them will have their keeper version of the trophy on their trophy wall.

Keep it going, GM

To Steve Gaynor,

Please excuse me if I add an opinion on responsibilities.

In an isolated sense there is not much question that you are correct in it being the player’s responsibility to call the caddy especially when finishing the last board needed to be passed to the other table.

Having said that, I will then ask you to now coordinate in your mind, with an intention to have an opinion as to what happened at the previous sectional in Las Vegas (late October, 2010) when:

1. The TD staff decided to play 8 boards with 7 board time constraints, e.g each round was only allowed 52 1/2 minutes (7 1/2 minutes per board) to play 8 boards (normally 60 minutes).

2. With at least my watch and no doubt others showing exactly 4:52PM (having rushed to be started at approximately 4:05PM with tables to be found, systems to be verified and boards to be shuffled). While just reaching to take my hand out of the pocket (along with the other 3 players) and play what was obviously the championship match in this particular Swiss Team (2 leading teams) the TD (Jean Molnar) came over to our table and snatched the board away from us, disallowing us from being able to play it. They then, with absolutely no evidence as to who was slow (admitted by both sides with again in undisputed fashion Judy and I used perhaps 20 minutes while the opponents took 32, but from an equitable standpoint they had all the problems, declared 5 of the 7 hands played and we had relatively none) penalized Judy’s and my team 3IMPs for probably being the slow team since earlier in this event the other half of our team was warned for slow play.

Ironically it didn’t change our team winning the event, but rather instead made the team we were playing finish 2nd instead of 3rd, disenfranching the real 2nd place finisher who was not involved in our match but competing elsewhere in the event. Then the 2 main TDs immediately left the tournament supposedly to have dinner and then make an early plane causing the DIC, Bill Michael to say that he did not have the authority to change the 2nd and 3rd place finishers back to their rightful finishes since his 2 TD’s would have to corroborate what happened.

Since then the above scenario was corroborated but still no change.

Would those facts, waiting for you or whoever else to verify them, cause you to at least lose just a little confidence in who was running (term used loosely) this tournament?

In case you are wondering why I am burdening you to get involved, I’m actually not, but I am suggesting that the orderly and legal way for a tournament to be run is with an equitable touch first, followed by a competitive bent which logically and particularly in the championship match should strongly prefer that, in the absence of gross slowness, to play all boards scheduled and not to enter the fray so that others might surmise that perhaps the TD’s had an interest in who won the tournament, or, at least in some judgment that the TDs were more interested in their social life after the tournament and their plane catching than they were with their jobs during the tournament.

Perhaps all the above could even be tolerated and effectively overlooked, if it was not for an august group of a significant number of the ACBL’s leading and most experienced TDs who, after investigating it, absolutely declared that this particular tournament was run 100% correctly with no changes suggested. At least to me, that judgment must have come straight from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

None of the above is intended to contradict your suggesting that the caddies are not the only ones responsible for the timely distribution of the boards.

If so, if you were on our team, would it cause you to have the same opinion as to who should be responsible for what or would it be just another day at the office and not bother you one whit?

Martha:

Right on — but easier said than done. Most claim it all happened so long ago and the records don’t go that far back.

Pity! Pity! Great way to protect a donation.

Judy

Gary:

That is a novel approach and certainly one that Peter would have approved of as he had a great love of the game and interest in bringing more people into the fold. The only problem would be if partnerships played together (and one played in a side game and outdid the other by a smidgeon). We can worry about that later — but certainly a possibility.

I personally was thinking along the lines of a Pender Open Team or Senior Teams Trials. I guarantee you if we put our heads together, something wonderful would emerge from a joint effort.

IN ANY EVENT — SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. It is LONG PAST DUE!

Thanks for writing.

Judy

I dare say, if Peter hadn’t been gay and gone the way he did, the ACBL would have respected this contract.

That they don’t rectify the situation NOW is legally and morally reprehensible. Shame on them!

Sorry to say it, but it’s been the rhinoceros head in the living room. Peter deserves better.

Mark:

Yours is a sad commentary. I pray it is not true. In fact, there is a ray of hope. I have contacted someone with power (and in-the-know) who has taken up our cause and perhaps soon Peter will be honored as he deserved big time.

Judy

HBJ : Please take alook at my latest Devil’s dictionary. I’m sure you’ll approve at least one of the entries !

Sorry, HBJ:

Just saw this as it is an old blog. Below must be what you were referring to. How true,

how true.

Holding : an account where money bequeathed to bridge organisations sits indefinitely, never to be spent on the items specified in the will. Money seemingly left in a permanent state of unspent limbo.