ALTRINCHAM BRIDGE
CLUB
NEWSLETTER Issue
31 -- August 2009
Home page. .
It
is a while since I penned a Newsletter, but since it is one of the best ways of
keeping members informed, I am writing another one. You might ask, why is it I am writing it and
not Lindsey? The answer to this lies in
the outcome of the Committee Meeting on Monday 24 August, when the following
business was transacted:-
Lindsey
Barnes resigned as Chairperson and becomes Secretary
(subject to the Annual General Meeting).
Norman
Killey resigned as Secretary.
Peter
Jackson resigned as Competition Secretary.
Peter
Dawson was elected as Chairperson.
Mohammed
Jabbar was elected as Competition Secretary
(subject
to the Annual General Meeting)
Mohammed
Jabbar is relatively new to our Club, but is a very regular attender, mainly on
Monday/Thursday, and plays in
Lindsey
was quite at home as Chairperson, but felt that a position of Club Secretary
was of much more interest to him, so he has agreed to take over from Norman
Killey.
What
I need, to keep writing newsletters, is for members to tell me items of general
interest. Speak to me!! In the previous 32 Newsletters I have
written, very little of the information has come from the “floor”.
Tuesday
play is as much a part of our Club as play on any other night, so a decision
has been made to hold our Annual General Meeting this year on Tuesday, 6
October at 6.45 pm. Bridge will follow
as usual. I make a plea to
Monday/Thursday players to please turn up on that Tuesday at the Annual General
Meeting.
Our
Club, as you know, is involved in forward planning so as to fit in with the new
system the EBU is introducing next April.
Your Committee has already made one or two basic decisions and a pilot
committee is fleshing out the bare bones and more information will be placed on
the notice board from time to time.
Basic decisions already made (but do not come into effect until 10 April
2010) are:-
1. Altrincham Bridge Club (ABC) will be affiliated to the EBU and play on a
Monday/Thursday. All its members will
also be EBU members.
2. Altrincham Bridge Club Z (ABCZ) will not be
affiliated to the EBU and play on a Tuesday/Wednesday. Its Ordinary members need not be members of
the EBU and may only play as occasional guests on Monday/Thursday.
3. All members of ABC will also become Honorary
members of ABCZ and may play as often as they wish on Tuesday/Wednesday.
4. ABC and ABCZ will have the same Chairperson,
Secretary, Treasurer and Committee and Auditor.
5. At an appropriate time, all our present
members will indicate whether they wish to belong to ABC or ABCZ. If you have intention to play on a
Monday/Thursday, the issue is clear cut, you opt for ABC.
6. A member who first chooses ABC may opt at
will to join ABCZ and the reverse holds equally.
7. Any member of ABC may have a pseudonym. This is to fit in with the Data Protection
Act. (see notice-board).
8. The EBU/County is charging 36p (in the 1st
year) every time a player plays on a Monday/Thursday (P2P). The Club will pay this,
Information
memos will be posted, both to present members and on the notice-board. The outcome of all this is that, for most of
our members, virtually nothing will change at all.
Questions
have been asked about the quality of our playing cards and I have attempted to
answer this with a memo on the notice-board.
It all springs from chocolate biscuits and chocolate smeared
fingers! Our playing cards are the best
quality EBU cards and used to last at least 7 weeks, but are now lasting less
then 4 weeks. Views are being asked for
about replacing chocolate biscuits with wrapped plain biscuits (2 per
pack). Please make your views known
before the Committee make a decision (soon after the Annual General Meeting).
A
birthday card was signed by many members and presented at the appropriate time
to Ron Goodman, who at 92 years is our oldest member and was playing regularly
at our Club. Well done Ron!
Bridgemates
are one of the wonders of the bridge world and have been in use for 10
years. Our Club has been using them for
about 4 years. The designers are
bringing out a 2nd edition bridgemate which has many advantages over the
present one. Advantages for club
members are that the screen is much
larger and contains all the information about the contract and result in one
go; names of who plays who and rounds left still to play are shown at each
round, etc.
Our
Committee has to make a decision whether to buy new 2nd edition bridgemates and
get a £25 refund for each of our old ones (whilst the offer is on) or to hope
our old ones will last many years (no-one knows the answer to this). Present ones and 2nd edition ones cannot be
used together. Sales of present
bridgemates will cease as soon as the 2nd edition ones come out (except to get
rid of stock), For those of you
interested in finance, 2nd edition ones will cost £126 each; (but we would
return old ones and the true cost would be £101 each).
Stock clearance of old ones would cost us £85 each.
We
continue to retain close contact with Manchester County Bridge Association, our
A
few members have commented to me, very favourably, about the bridge played on
Monday afternoon in our Bridge Hall.
However, this bridge has nothing to do with our Club; it is
professionally run for a profit by about 3 bridge players who rarely, if ever,
play at our own Bridge Club. They rent
the hall directly from St Peters.
Wednesday
night attendance is fluctuating between
5.5 and 7 tables. Peter Jackson,
assisted by Steve and Liz Halstead are trying hard to push numbers up.
If you have a spare night on a Wednesday, why not turn up – your support
will be appreciated.
It
may be of interest to members to know that, taken over many weeks, our average
attendance per week is about 48 tables for the combined 4 evenings. It varies from about 44 to 58 tables, with
Monday being nearly always the most popular night (15 to 17 tables).
The
internal short Course I ran for simple Directing in 2006 was well attended by 6
potential Directors. We always need Directors, so I put a notice
up and publicised another short Course of 5 lessons for a Wednesday evening in
January 2009. Unfortunately, only 1
person signed up for the Course I can
understand that not everyone wants to Direct, but it is of great help to the
Club if we have a reasonably large group for our rota.
Help
for the Committee is on hand from two other sources. Joan Lewis has agreed to help as Assistant
Secretary to Lindsey and Margaret Harris has agreed to liaise with
Mieke and will stand in for her whenever needed and run Tuesday evening in her
absence.
Our
Club continues to be over subscribed for membership and whilst this is a nice
state to be in as far as the Club is concerned, it is not so nice for players
seeking membership. We have 284 members
in the Club and because of space, just cannot accommodate any more. What we have decided is:-
a)
Players may join our Club, being restricted to playing on Tuesday/Wednesday. They may not play more than 6 times on a Monday/Thursday.
b)
Players may play as often as they like
on Mon/Thurs, subject to certain
restrictions :-
1. they must fill in a club application form
& go on a waiting list.
2. they will be accepted as guests , with
guests’ table money.
3. if there are more than 18 tables, they will
not be able to play that night.
c) Players who have not filled in an
application form, may only attend
6 times in total as guests on all evenings.
It is probable that the club will re-introduce a
visitors’ book in the near future and all guests will have to sign in &
give, where appropriate, their ebu number.
All
members are reminded not to leave personal belongings (handbag, etc) on view in
the bridge hall. After the recent incident where an intruder came in and stole
a handbag off a table, it is important you place items out of view as far as
possible. We try to remember to lock the
kitchen door at 7.30pm each night – should you see it open, then please release
the yale lock and lock it to.
At
the end of each evening’s play, please turn a card over before placing them
back into the boards. This is helpful to the Director and also ensures that all
cards are shuffled prior to play the next time the board is used. I suppose getting the same 27 pointed hand on
a Monday & on a Thursday would be exhilarating, but not conducive to good
bridge!
The
incidence of Swine Flu seems to be diminishing. We did, earlier, consider
whether to take any extra precautions at our club, such as an alcohol hand
wash. None was recommended by NHS Direct, so we held fire.
The
club has been in contact with St Peter’s regarding our rent/lease agreement,
which runs to April 2011, with an 18 month rolling termination on either side.
You will be pleased to hear that St Peter’s has agreed to give us another 5
year extension, to run from the end of the present agreement. This gives us a
home, barring mishaps, to April 2016.
As
I said earlier, some information on EBU affiliation will be posted to all
members when the AGM notices go out.
Please read this information carefully & be punctilious in letting
our Membership secretary have any return needed.
Finally,
let me repeat and say that the new EBU regulations do not come into effect
until 10th April 2010. Until that date, nothing will change at our club.
Peter
Dawson