I suspect that most of us turn up to play bridge without giving thought to the fact that the boards which are delivered to you by the lovely director have been lovingly crafted by a group of volunteers.
It takes several hours every week to "deal" these boards and put them in their containers. Usually a team of two will take 3 to 4 hours to deal the boards for the coming week and when there are special events on that require extra boards it takes a bit longer. There is also a considerable amount of paper work which has to be done in conjunction with each board - photocopying hand records and documenting what has been done to ensure the smooth running of a bridge session.
The dealing machine is a very clever device which recognises the face of each card and places it in the right slot according to the particular computer-generated hand. However it is quite temperamental and being a very precise device it gets upset easily. It does not recognise when boards have been selected out of order so if you have put in board 10 and it is dealing board 9 it does not know - so our volunteers have to be very careful.
It also does not like:
- DUST - so we regularly replace our cards with new ones
- BENT CARDS - usually caused by people when playing who bend the cards or cause the edges to become nicked or frayed
- UPSIDE-DOWN CARDS - it can only read the face of the cards
- COFFEE OR WATER DAMAGED CARDS - please notify the director if this occurs so that pack can be replaced at the end of that session.
Such breakdowns can turn a three hour session into a four or five hour session very easily. So I would like to request that we all treat our lovely pre-dealt cards with respect and make it as easy as possible for our dealing machine and dealers. In particular:
- Please put the boards in the correct order when finishing with them at your table or if you are collecting boards after a session.
- Do not bend or flick the edges of cards when you play them or when you are thinking and trying to decide which card to play.
- Put the cards back into their container carefully and all facing the same way.
These simple considerate actions will save our volunteers many hours of angst and our dealing machine from stopping so frequently. Thank you in advance!
