From the Committee
April has been a busy month at the club, with a very successful Swiss Teams Congress as well as the Autumn Individual competition, which provides a lovely opportunity to play with a few different people other than your regular partner.
Saturday 5 March is our annual Bridge For Brains Day. Along with clubs all over Australia, we donate the session proceeds and raise funds for Alzheimer’s Research - please join us and help this important cause.
Another national event happening in May is the Australia Wide Novice Pairs. Come along on Friday 25 May and see how you fare against novice players across the country - a fun event and you receive a booklet of all the hands played that day, with an analysis of bidding and play.
Most players will have noticed the kitchen bench re-organisation. Here is the story:
For our large sessions, particularly Wednesday and Friday afternoons, members have been reporting two problems: congestion and running out of hot water during the afternoon tea break.
The problem of running out of hot water is that the two bench-top hot water dispensers can in fact run out of boiling water in large session afternoon tea breaks and then take half an hour or so to reheat. The problem with congestion was exacerbated with players needing to be at the bench to collect a cup, choose their tea or coffee, then fill their hot water and finally add milk if they choose.
On Monday 30 April Logan the plumber visited the club. Not for the first time. The problem was a blockage in the left hand hot water sink drain. Again not for the first time...
Logan identified the problem as a build up of coffee dregs and tea leaves in the drain. Not for the first time here either.
Can we all please avoid rinsing dirty cups in the two hot water dispensing sinks - they are not designed as or intended to be kitchen sinks! If a cup should need rinsing before going in the dishwasher please use the main kitchen sink. And if you spot someone else rinsing a cup in a hot water dispensing sink, please politely ask them not to - and ask them how they could possibly have missed this important article!
The committee and key representatives of our sub-committees met in the second half of January to think out loud about the future of the Club and identify decisions that needed to be made and issues that needed to be managed. Read our strategy meeting summary.
There were three key questions:
- Why are we here as a club?
- Where do we want to be in five years?
- What do we need to manage well to get there?
One player comment recently lamented the decline in numbers at our Thursday afternoon session. Another lamented how full the Wednesday session was becoming.
Overall our table numbers are growing. There is considerable variability across the year making comparisons difficult but our overall weekly number of tables being played (excluding our supervised sessions) seems to be about 30-40 tables higher than two years ago. The Wednesday and Friday sessions have shown the most growth, with numbers now often touching or just over thirty tables in play.
We currently have thirty-five permanent tables and are working on bringing this up to thirty-seven in the near future, seeing this as the room's capacity while still retaining our social area near the kitchen. We are also planning to buy additional chairs and side-tables to match these table numbers.
The Club plays under the latest NSWBA Tournament Regulations, adjusted where appropriate by supplementary regulations defined and published for particular events.
These supplementary regulations may be defined by the event organiser for national, state and other interclub events, and by the Tournament Sub-Committee for the club's own special events. They will normally be displayed on the Notice Board adjacent to the entry list for the event. Entry to the event assumes that players have read these rules and will abide by them.
Our friendly club is growing.
Some of our sessions are so popular that we are beginning to run out of mugs for our tea and coffee.
So if you have one or two orphan mugs, bring them in.
We'll adopt them and they can join our wonderful eclectic bridge family in the kitchen cupboard.
As I write this to you, our President is flying to the United Kingdom on family business following the death of her mother at the end of December. I am sure we all wish her well.
It is with sadness that I also note the passing of long term member, Barbara Austin. She was a Gold member with 30 years as a member. She last played at the club on 30 November last year, where she scored close to 60%.
We are now in the full swing of 2018 with all of our sessions back in action. Some of our members have had fantastic holidays, some have already done well in the ABF Summer Festival in Canberra, and some are planning to do so at the Gold Coast in February. Our 2018 learning program for members of all types and levels is also now underway and I hope you avail yourselves of some of the learning options. We are also soon starting our beginners classes for new players - please invite your friends and family members so that they might enjoy the social mind game of bridge.
