From the Committee
Members are asked to ensure their emergency contact details have been provided and are up-to-date.
While rarely used these details may be very important should some health or other need unexpectedly arise.
You can update your own emergency contact details by logging into Pianola and then clicking on the My Account option visible when you click on the downwards arrow to the right of your name (showing in the top right of the screen).
You will find your Emergency Contact details showing as per the image for this article. Note you can also update your email address, phone number and postal address on this same page. When you have completed your updates you need to scroll down and click on the Save button!
Websites not your thing? Talk to Greg Hay, our hardworking Membership Secretary, Susan Coleman, our hardworking Club Secretary, or me (David Farmer) if you need help. And yes I have now updated my emergency contact details (I have two contacts there now)...
The club has six events a year where it serves alcohol, e.g. Christmas, Melbourne Cup, Club Congresses. Our liquor license requires that the person serving must have a Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate (RSA).
As part of our volunteer culture we would love some of our members to become RSA certified and help out at these events. The club will organise and pay for the training. You can do it face to face (about 6 ½ hours) or if you prefer, at home at your computer. This will take 5 to 6 hours and is self paced.
These events are important to the club and they have a long history. However, the club must comply with NSW legislation and if we don’t have sufficient RSA volunteers, this sadly may mean that no alcohol can be served or ticket prices may need to be increased to pay for certified servers.
Please contact
As a club we try to help members who find themselves at a session unexpectedly without a partner - due to some last minute problem of their partner or due to a partnership communication failure!
For the last 12 months we have relied on fill-in volunteers who are happy to be called to see if they are free to come in and play. We would like to reward these volunteers and attract more to join their ranks - so that this service will work even more reliably than it does now.
So from Fri 10 May we will not only offer the fill-in volunteer a free game when they come in, but also a free game voucher to use later.
I hope you have Monday 6 May in your diaries and are coming along to Bridge for Brains, an Australia-wide ABF-organised charity event. The proceeds go to Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) - an independent, not-for-profit research institute based in Sydney, Australia, aiming to prevent, treat and cure brain and nervous system diseases, disorders and injuries through medical research.
Premises Update
In April, members of the Committee and the Premises Working Group met with Council representatives regarding the initial community consultation on the Warriewood Valley Community Centre.
On Monday 1 April, the President announced a new honour board special event focused on the 40% of our membership with less than 15 masterpoints.
The event will be named the Cath Whiddon Cup, honouring the huge contribution made by Cath to the club as a whole and in particular to the club's education program that has been its significant source of new members since 2010. More than 400 of our current members joined the club during that time.
The new pairs event will be played in 2019 over three Mondays - on 20 and 27 May and 3 June. This is a red point, members-only event. Entrants must have less than 15MP as at the end of March 2019.
We are a volunteer-run not-for-profit club - this supports our friendly culture and keeps our table money levels below many other clubs. Of course it means we also regularly look for volunteers to take on roles in the club.
Currently we are looking for - drink servers at our major functions, office support for events, additional dealers, fill-in players, Facebook support - see below to see if one of these roles might suit you.
We expect the size of the red section to grow on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons, as an increasing number of players graduate from the green section.
Members will remember discussions among interested members have occurred over the last three months to work out the best ways of dealing with the need to progress experienced players from the green section and how to manage the impacts on other sections in the best way for our club's members.
The green section's primary goal is to provide a suitable environment for supervised session and beginner players looking to play in a regular duplicate for the first time. It accommodates a slower rate of play and allows growing familiarisation with duplicate session play, laws and etiquette.
Dear members,
April sees the start of the Autumn Individual Competition on Mondays which is a great opportunity to play with different partners over 4 Mondays (only three scores count so you can start on Monday 8 April).
On Sunday 28 April, Peninsula hosts the annual Swiss Teams Congress - a great day for players of every level of experience. Swiss Teams means that you quickly find yourself playing with similarly experienced players and it is a lot of fun. The sign- up sheet is on the noticeboard and you can sign up as a team of four, or as a pair to be matched up.
