Volunteers Needed

[TwstofLime]

♥♥♥♥♥

If you are an advanced or expert player and would enjoy helping less experienced players learn how to play bridge, please volunteer for the Mentorship Programme in the Beginner/Intermediate Lounge (BIL) on BBO.

 

The BIL provides a supportive learning environment for students and your help is needed for beginners all over the world who would love to improve their game.

 

Please contact Maureen and give a beautiful gift.

♥♥♥♥♥

[wank]

my dad does this - someone less suited to being a mentor it would be hard to find.

[mgoetze]

Let me get this straight... we are supposed to volunteer our time while BIL rakes in the cash?

 

Meanwhile, the first thing that greets me when I go to the BIL site is an annoying JavaScript popup that you only support Firefox and Internet Exploder. There is no way I am supporting an organisation with such a disdain for standards.

 

Of course, the site worked just fine nonetheless and I noticed that you are now offering lifetime memberships. I have no interest in mentoring anyone who plans to remain a lifetime beginner/intermediate player. :P

[gnasher]

Let me get this straight... we are supposed to volunteer our time while BIL rakes in the cash?

That seems rather unfair. BIL is a non-profit organisation with no paid staff, isn't it?

[gwnn]

In any case I have never appreciated these unsolicited ads which seem to appear here every now and again because membership is not free.

[mgoetze]

That seems rather unfair. BIL is a non-profit organisation with no paid staff, isn't it?

 

I don't know. All I know is that they sell memberships. If you can demonstrate that all their income actually goes towards sponsoring youth bridge I will retract my statement and apologize.

[gnasher]

I don't know. All I know is that they sell memberships. If you can demonstrate that all their income actually goes towards sponsoring youth bridge I will retract my statement and apologize.

Who said anything about youth bridge? So far as I can tell from their website, their objective is to provide lessons, resources and a suitable playing environment for new players. Also according to their website, they are "self funding" and the organiser is "unpaid".

 

http://www.bilbridge.com/BILAbout/history.html

 

(near the bottom, under the heading "The Present ( November 2009) ")

[mgoetze]

It is all fine and well to claim that "there are considerable costs involved in administering the BIL," but I can't for the life of me imagine what they are.

[mtvesuvius]

There are considerable costs involved in administering the BIL . The BIL is of necessity self funding. I was reluctant to impose a compulsory membership fee as I would have liked the BIL to remain free for all beginner , intermediate players to join and enjoy.

 

From 2004 until January 2009 Members assisted by

 

taking part in the BIL's Pay for Tournaments from which the BIL retains 5 - 20% of the entry fee (depends on the # tables playing) or

by making a voluntary annual membership contribution

by paying a Premium Membership fee to have unlimited access to this site

by supporting the bridge sponsored links listed in the BIL Shop

However with the ever mounting costs of maintaining and developing the BIL Library and with administration costs soaring I reluctantly introduced an Annual Support Fee of just $10 per annum in January 2009

These statements seem to contradict each-other. Where does the money go? It does not seem like there are many costs for running an online (supposedly) non-profit organization. This thread seems like it's headed toward the water cooler. While I agree with Michael, I also think that the concept of having a "haven" for B/I players is also very good. I would be uncomfortable volunteering my time though, while the BIL makes a profit of some sort, and I get nothing. Perhaps I'm just greedy, lol.

[OleBerg]

These statements seem to contradict each-other. Where does the money go? It does not seem like there are many costs for running an online (supposedly) non-profit organization. This thread seems like it's headed toward the water cooler. While I agree with Michael, I also think that the concept of having a "haven" for B/I players is also very good. I would be uncomfortable volunteering my time though, while the BIL makes a profit of some sort, and I get nothing. Perhaps I'm just greedy, lol.

 

No, you're not. It would be downrigth silly to work for free, to let someone else make a profit.

[matmat]

No, you're not. It would be downrigth silly to work for free, to let someone else make a profit.

 

"Silly" is insufficiently strong. But I agree with the general sentiment.

 

That said, it's not clear if there is any profit being made here.

[gwnn]

web hosting is one area that I can think of but that is very cheap these days

[gwnn]

or perhaps they are paying the very famous lecturers?

[OleBerg]

or perhaps they are paying the very famous lecturers?

 

No, I haven't recieved a dime. :lol:

[mgoetze]

web hosting is one area that I can think of but that is very cheap these days

 

OK I will sponsor the web hosting, I guess then the membership fees can be dropped?

[gnasher]

Has everyone except me suffered a horible experience at the hands of a criminal gang which is fronted by a middle-aged bridge teacher?

[Finch]

No, but I have in the past been persuaded to volunteer my services for something, only to discover later that the person I was helping was getting paid, in effect for my labour. That also makes me generically cynical.

 

This is not necessarily a comment on the BIL, which I have not investigated at all.

[matmat]

Has everyone except me suffered a horible experience at the hands of a criminal gang which is fronted by a middle-aged bridge teacher?

 

 

Yes. :)

I am not sure I will ever recover.

[mikeh]

No, you're not. It would be downrigth silly to work for free, to let someone else make a profit.

I don't agree with this at all.

 

I suppose it depends on the level of commitment. My own time demands are such that I wouldn't be able to volunteer a meaningful amount of time unless I gave up such things as posting on BBF :P

 

But if mentoring meant spending say 3-5 hours a week, while running the BIL meant 25-40 hours a week....and if mentoring was a commitment that didn't extend more than a few weeks at a time, while running the BIL was a year-round job....then I have zero problem with the people who set up and spend (a lot) of their time making some money at it while depending on volunteers to do much if not all of the mentoring.

 

BBO, for example, is a money-making site, albeit with a lot of free features, for which we are all, I assume, grateful.

 

BBO charges, I believe, for doing vugraph.....I think Fred has said BBO doesn't make any profit from itand I trust him implicitly, but it is still a money-generating (as opposed to profit generating) service, that depends for its availability on lots of volunteer effort...I suspect that there are employees of or consultants to BBO who have been paid for their input into enabling BBO to run the vugraph. I don't see why I should refuse to commentate vugraph merely because I think someone somehow got paid for their involvement.

 

 

Say Roland, instead of volunteering, was paid a modest sum of money for his efforts....would any commentator quit in protest? I don't commentate anymore, but I'd be very surprised if any of the people I came to know through commentary did so.

 

 

Now, if BIL was raking in the cash, with the 'owners' making 6 figure incomes for little work, while taking advantage of volunteer mentors....then I have a problem with the setup. But I see no indication that this is what has been happening.

 

Edit: to clarify my remarks about BBO: I intended to comment only on the vugraph to show, I hoped, that there is nothing wrong, and in fact much that is good, about a service that generates some payment for some of those involved while also relying upon volunteer effort. BBO, as a whole, is an unabashedly commercial venture, as I understand it, albeit with a business model that utilizes provision of very much appreciated free services to attract and support the profit-making aspects. No-one should be expected to create and maintain something on the magnitude of BBO without making a profit.

[ggwhiz]

Frankly, I find the cynical comments and out of the blue assumptions about what the BIL does from the "what's in it for me?" crowd particularly disgusting at this time of year.

 

If you want to pick a bone with a profit oriented non-profit, try the ACBL. As Mike points out, income generating as opposed to profits, how about BBO? What do you do to promote Bridge?

[Finch]

BBO charges, I believe, for doing vugraph.....I think Fred has said BBO doesn't make any profit from itand I trust him implicitly, but it is still a money-generating (as opposed to profit generating) service, that depends for its availability on lots of volunteer effort...I suspect that there are employees of or consultants to BBO who have been paid for their input into enabling BBO to run the vugraph. I don't see why I should refuse to commentate vugraph merely because I think someone somehow got paid for their involvement.

 

 

No, it doesn't

[Phil]

If the BIL manager was skimming a substantial income for a non-profit enterprise where volunteers where sought to provide free services, then I might object. Or I might not.

 

To me, it comes down to level of fairness with other individuals that run other bridge-related organizations, the time involved, and the impact on the game.

[mikeh]

No, it doesn't

Thanks....I had thought there was some cost, insufficient to cover expenses...I am even more impressed by it being entirely free...since clearly someone (or someones) entitled to recompense has worked on and presumably continues to work on the software and hosting, etc.

[wank]

Thanks....I had thought there was some cost, insufficient to cover expenses...I am even more impressed by it being entirely free...since clearly someone (or someones) entitled to recompense has worked on and presumably continues to work on the software and hosting, etc.

 

well, not really. assuming they don't get paid for it and lose money on it directly, it's still fantastic advertising for BBO. EBU, ACBL, USBF etc, display BBO's details on their homepages directing their members to the site for the vugraph on their events.

[mgoetze]

But if mentoring meant spending say 3-5 hours a week, while running the BIL meant 25-40 hours a week....and if mentoring was a commitment that didn't extend more than a few weeks at a time, while running the BIL was a year-round job....then I have zero problem with the people who set up and spend (a lot) of their time making some money at it while depending on volunteers to do much if not all of the mentoring.

 

Sure, I'm not saying this would be unreasonable. But I would expect the organiser to be up-front about this and not claim to be unpaid while secretly stashing the money in their private account. I think it is not unreasonable to ask where the money is going if you are being asked to volunteer.

 

Furthermore, I think it is an important aspect just because people will have different expectations when they are paying for something. Unfortunately, the level of expectation isn't often correlated to the amount they are paying. I observe this all the time at work: people who are paying 1000 bucks per month for a cluster of dedicated servers are often much more relaxed about problems than people paying 99 cents per month for the most basic webhosting package.