Bring your family and friends to our social Trivia Night on Saturday 22 September. This is a chance to have fun with family and friends and perhaps softly encourage them to learn to play bridge.
An initiative of one of our members, Nerida Gillies, this is a combined Peninsula Bridge Club/Australian Mensa event. We're providing the venue (and bridgy environment) and they are providing the experienced Trivia Night compere, and hopefully a range of their members who will learn to associate fun with bridge.
The event is free to attend but will raise money via gold coin quizzes and raffle for our charities Rural Fire Brigade of NSW and Mona Vale Hospital Auxiliary.
Our bridge education has been and is a critical activity for our club, essential for the ongoing renewal of our club, and for maintaining our vibrant member body and promoting our game. It has been instrumental in our change from a club with declining membership more than five years ago to one that now has stable, stronger membership trends.
Some members have raised the question of how our bridge education activities are managed and accounted for.
The direction, scope and course fees of our bridge education program are agreed between the Committee and the Bridge Education Sub-Committee every six months. This year for example we reduced the number of beginners classes in favour of more courses focused on our improver players. This shift probably contributed to our club membership falling slightly this year in contrast to growth in recent years.
In the past three months we have incurred four separate callouts from the building's security contractor when the alarm system has indicated that our club-house has not been properly secured. The charges for these callouts add up to several hundred dollars - money we would prefer to spend on other benefits to our members!
While the responsibility for ensuring that our club-house is left secure rests with our volunteer directors and we are trying to find our ways of supporting less issues, all members can help by ensuring that windows are fully closed at the end of each session.
The State Open Pairs Qualifying event run over three Mondays finished yesterday, 27 August, with the top four pairs: 1st David Farmer/Catherine Whiddon 184.90, 2nd Peter Clarke/Hans van Weeren 169.19, 3rd Alan Davies/Vivien Eldridge 167.42 and 4th Jennifer Ardill/Yvonne Perkins 164.37.
The top four pairs earn club-sponsored entry into the State Open Pairs Championship on 24-25 November at the NSW Bridge Association. Other competing pairs are eligible to play this two day event at a cost of $50 if they join the club entry. See the convener Alan Davies for more information.
Sometimes it feels a little precarious bidding at the five level, particularly in a competitive bidding situation. You were comfortable bidding game in a major and the pesky opponents come in with a 5 level bid...
Should you double, bid on or pass? Will their contract make or is it a sacrifice to be punished? Will you make at the five level?
Come and hear international players, Liam Milne and Susan Humphries, speak on exactly this topic: "Action at the 5 level: Double, bid or pass" at the club on Tuesday 28 August. An opportunity not to be missed. Check all the details.
We ended up with 24 tables at the PBC Swiss Pairs Congress on Sunday 29 July, which was a bit disappointing. Perhaps the middle of winter is not the best time for a congress?
Nonetheless the event was very well received by those that did participate. Ronnie Ng did a great job as director and everything went very smoothly. Volunteer caterer Cassandra Mitchell provided wonderful food all day which was much appreciated.
On Saturday 14 July our Club hosted a very special celebration - for the 75th Wedding Anniversary of Una and Colin Mingay. Following an early start/finish game of bridge there was a party, splendidly organised and catered by Sue Riley.
Colin delivered a fond and often amusing history of his and Una’s meeting, wedding and subsequent history together. Their son, David, accompanied the talk with a photo presentation and appropriate interjections.
Colin’s verse on marriage, read aloud by Shirley Corbett, should be salutary reading for all couples!
Two more of our members have obtained their club director qualifications in the last month.
Sandie Rooke and Susan Jensen received their directing certifications this month. Sandie and Susan are both members of the Bridge Education team and direct some of our supervised sessions.
