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Recent changes have triggered some discussion among members at the club, including on the need for us to have registered for GST.
To help this discussion be more informed we have attached two papers that the ABF commissioned when GST was introduced and later when the GST thresholds were revised.
The club continues to support visitors and other players who find themselves unexpectedly without a partner at a number of its sessions: Monday afternoons (Green section only), Wednesday afternoons, Wednesday evenings, Friday afternoons and Friday evenings. We also welcome unpartnered players at all of our supervised sessions.
We have started keeping records of the unpartnered players at these sessions and there are many. While we encourage these players to proactively arrange for their own partners, we are glad when we can help those who unexpectedly find themselves partnerless.
We have received 203 responses to our member survey at the time of writing this article, an impressive 33% response rate from our 608 members. It is not too late. If you have not completed the survey or wish to update your response click on http://bit.ly/PBCSurvey2018. We want to gather as many of our members' views as possible to give us a good foundation for making decisions on your behalf.
A few of our members did not want to include their year of birth and remarkably were born in 2018. That is of course their choice but for some purposes these responses will need to be excluded. For instance it may not be possible to use their survey responses as demographic evidence to demonstrate to Council and other similar bodies our provision of strong community value to senior citizens, and could diminish our claim to stronger community support.
The survey will close at noon on Saturday 30 June. Printed responses will be entered online. The responses will then be augmented by postcode and other relevant membership data held and the results summarized and anonymized in a form useful to the committee and for inclusion into a club demographic and transport needs profile - and interesting summary results published on the website.
Some of the changes at the club have inspired discussions among members about the club's membership situation.
To help these discussions be well-informed and constructive, members may be interested in some recent membership trends, looking at both the joining dates of our current members and the number of lapsed and resigned members.
The joining dates of our current 607 members are as follows:
Eight teams, each with at least 2 novice players (less than 100MP), played in the enjoyable Members and Novices Teams Day on Monday 4 July. The goal was to introduce and entice less experienced players into the team format of the game - and the social, fun aspects were enhanced by frequent nibbles (often healthy) and the relaxed 10am-3.30pm, five 8 board match format.
The winners were the Evershed team (Sue Evershed, John Simmonds, Heidi Colenbrander and Ray Hurst) well ahead of the Small team (Anne Small, Nerida Gillies, Lynn Baker and Keith Trevallion).
Check the full results and some great photos from the day.
76 Peninsula members played in the 2018 Australia-Wide Novice Pairs on Friday 25 May. Novice players (<50MP) in clubs all over Australia played the same boards and results were scored across the country. A booklet with expert analysis of the hands was provided.
Locally calculated results were published on our website. You can check the national results on the event coordinator's website. These are still provisional at time of writing.
Nationally Sue Evershed and John Simmonds are our best pair, coming 29th across the country with 64.5% according to the results processed at time of writing, ahead of Christine Egan and Dianne Agostino who are 35th with 63.9% and Karl Puse and Yumiko Tsuji who are 41st with 63.3%. Congratulations to these pairs who, once the results are final, need to claim prizes for being in the top 50.
This month, the Committee has been explaining to members - through talks at the club and information on the website - the key challenge facing our club, namely our future Clubhouse.
The Committee’s decision to prioritise adding additional money to our annual surplus, for the purpose of being well prepared for the future, has received broad support.
The Committee is reviewing the Club’s finances to identify ways to raise money or save money, without taking away from the enjoyment of the game or the friendly experience of playing bridge at our Club. The initial measure of withdrawing winner’s tickets was supported by the majority as an effective first step to adding to our reserves - saving $24,000 a year.
The Sydney North Interclub Pairs Challenge is being held at Peninsula on Sunday 15 July. Last year we won this in a nail-biting finish with a lead of half a point over Trumps with North Shore just a little further behind. Can we hold on to the title?
You can see the event flier and Peninsula's call for expressions of interest (also on the noticeboard). Do note that pairs who have achieved success in competitive events in the past year are likely to be invited to represent the Club, and the expressions of interest recorded on the noticeboard will then be considered. This is a club entry process, but those pairs who miss out may be able to play for other Sydney North clubs including as an All-Stars team.
