The financially troubled Vero Beach Bridge Club plans to push through a comprehensive reform of its bylaws designed to give its present Board of Governors more power, to limit input from members according to some of its critics, and to make it easier to discipline and even expel members.
The Board of Governors will present the proposed bylaw changes at a special general membership meeting called for May 6 at 1 p.m., the same time the club’s regular daily duplicate game is supposed to start, indicating the board expects and is aiming for a brief meeting and a quick up-or-down vote.
This past Monday, at a special meeting labeled as “private,” the board gave members an opportunity to ask questions about the proposed bylaw changes and a handful of members showed up to voice their concerns, turning the meeting into, at times, a contentious affair.
Asked if anything major will change as a result of the comments made by members, Board President Denis Conlon said, “probably nothing.”
One provision of the new bylaws would extend term limits, letting board members serve three consecutive terms instead of the current two. They would also allow the board to have meetings only every other month, although Conlon said he intends to continue to have monthly meetings.
“There seems to be an undercurrent here of shutting out members from having any input in the way the club is run,” one member said.
Another member commented that the bylaw rewrite seemed a deliberate attempt to “stamp out any type of dissent,” especially coupled with the fact that the longest part of any new bylaws text deals with disciplinary procedures for suspensions or expulsions.
“This seems very punitive,” one member said. “I feel threatened,” said another.
Conlon was unapologetic about the intent of the new bylaw clauses on discipline, admitting that the board could well decide “in its infinite wisdom” that a member who publishes an unfavorable article about the policies of the present board or management of the club has engaged in acts detrimental to the club. The Board could then, by majority vote, decide to expel such a member.
“If we determine that anything was detrimental to the interests of the club,” Conlon said, “you’re out of here – and don’t let the door hit you’re a– on the way out.”
Any move for expulsion, according to the new bylaws, would not even have to go through the club’s standing Conduct and Ethics Committee, which deals with unacceptable behavior at the bridge tables.
There was universal agreement at the meeting that the club’s main problem remains stemming the steady erosion of membership and the declining table count of daily bridge games, and that the bylaw rewrite does not address that core problem. “This is just something that we felt needed to be done,” said Ann Espy, a board member who was part of a special three-person committee on bylaw reform.
Another bylaw change will allow the club to hire anyone to teach bridge classes, eliminating the need for club teachers to be certified by the national organization, the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), which one member said cannot be considered a positive step for growing membership.
The last time the 64-year-old club’s bylaws were updated was in 2020, just before the Covid pandemic shut down face-to-face play at the club for almost two years. Since the restart of in-person bridge, membership in the club has dwindled to just over half of pre-pandemic levels (from over 1,100 to just over 600) and table count is a fraction of what it was pre-Covid.
The club now has too much space and last year the board started exploring the sale of all or part of its club-owned building, a former bowling alley on 14th Avenue across from the Crestlawn Cemetery, but no serious takers have been found so far. To stop sizable financial losses, the club last year eliminated the office manager position, and Board Treasurer Stevan Trooboff said the club’s finances have now been stabilized to the point that the club can survive the lean summer months when many of the club’s snowbird members are up north.
