BBO Discussion Forums: Volunteers Needed - BBO Discussion Forums

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

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.

mgoetze, on 2010-December-20, 05:38, said:

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

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

gnasher, on 2010-December-20, 05:53, said:

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.

mgoetze, on 2010-December-20, 08:43, said:

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...ut/history.html

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

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.

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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.

mtvesuvius, on 2010-December-20, 11:28, said:

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

OleBerg, on 2010-December-20, 12:51, said:

"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.

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

or perhaps they are paying the very famous lecturers?

gwnn, on 2010-December-20, 13:10, said:

No, I haven't recieved a dime.

gwnn, on 2010-December-20, 13:09, said:

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

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

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.

gnasher, on 2010-December-20, 15:15, said:

Yes.
I am not sure I will ever recover.

OleBerg, on 2010-December-20, 12:51, said:

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

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.

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?