13-Sep-2020 Message from Phil Wilner,       President of Route 66 Bridge Club

It's been a few months since my last update. 

We still don't have a clear path forward to reopening our physical location.  Unfortunately, face to face bridge is going to have to wait until there is a vaccine and/or therapeutics given the age of our players.  I don't see us reopening in person bridge until 1Q or 2Q 2021.  Like you, I would like to play in person but it isn't safe right now.

Thanks to everyone's continued support, we remain in decent shape financially.  Your continued participation in our virtual club games through the Oklahoma Collective is covering almost three quarters of our fixed overhead.  And I am extremely appreciative of those who have made donations (one time as well as ongoing) now that we have tax exempt status.  This level of commitment from our players is very gratifying and indicative of how much all of us love this game and want to see it continue and to thrive.   Right now, we have just over $32,000 in the bank.  We are forecasting that we will have about $26,000 in the bank at the end of year.  We still have an outstanding $10K loan and about $9600 in unused prepaid tickets so this means we are just above break even from a monetary perspective.  Several of you are sending me your prepaid game tickets as another gesture of support and this is really appreciated (special thanks to Janie Funk for suggesting this and for her own donations).  You can send your unused tickets to me at my home address (see below); we track the number of unredeemed tickets as a liability in our accounting system.    And any of you who have outstanding pledges ($16,500 to go) should also feel free to your checks to me.    

When we resume face to face bridge next year, Easybridge! is going to be especially important in growing our club.  Before we shut down in March, we had started both morning and afternoon sessions on Saturdays.  Over 140 people expressed interest and over 100 of them attended at least one of our Easybridge! sessions.  We will be restarting Easybridge! next year as a top priority.  In the meantime, the Oklahoma Collective is offering an Easybridge! teaching table followed by a 0-50 game on Saturday mornings.  The group graduated from Easybridge! 1 to Easybridge! 2 last month.  Five Tulsa players regularly participate.  

I hope to see you at the table, especially in the upcoming Club Championship games the week of 21-Sep-2020 which feature extra points, 25% of which will be gold.  

In the meantime, please feel free to call (918-346-3125) or email (pwilner@friscoenergy.com) me with questions, comments or concerns.  While our club is closed, we are not receiving mail there.  Please send any mail to my home address:  3860 S. Florence Place, Tulsa, OK  74015.

Phil 

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OKLAHOMA COLLECTIVE GAMES

All of our games are shown in calendar (tabular) format on the Calendar page of this website.   The calendar is updated on the weekend with the games for the following week but we have standardized on a 19 game schedule for June.  

To find our game:

Go to BBO (www.bridgebase.com, you will need to have version 3 to play)

Go to Featured Area (green bar)

Click on Virtual Clubs

Click on ACBL North America

2 hours prior to the start of game time  you will find our game, scrolling down as required to find it .  The ACBL has called us the "OKLAHOMA COLLECTIVE".  If you have trouble finding us, please look for the word "Oklahoma" as we are the only virtual club with "Oklahoma" in the name.   Any point restriction will be noted.  

You will get a screen where you register to play.  You will need to enter your partner's name.   At this point you will need at least $5 in your BBO Account.   The regular games cost $5 per player while special games featuring extra points cost $8 per player.  

The BBO software stratifies all games proportionally based on the players in each specific game.    

The game results are posted on ACBL Live.  We are trying to post all of the game results under Fun and Games although we have used both club's sanction numbers in the past.