Happy New Year to you all.
We finished last year with a very festive party. Many thanks to Belinda and Val for organising our Annual Christmas Eve Party. Belinda wrote:
‘The bridge room was buzzing on Christmas Eve with over 40 Members in the festive mood playing Chicago Bridge. The mince pies and mulled wine went down a treat – it was such fun that even Father Christmas decided to have a break from his sleigh filling and join in.’
This year started with our annual individual competition, the Miller Cup. It really is a marathon event which was brilliantly run by Steve Foster. He managed to get 36 people moving round the room, playing only one hand of bridge with each partner, without any mishaps – truly remarkable. Many congratulations to Albert Isalan who was the winner of the Miller Cup and to Celia Johnson, the runner up.
On 27th January our Monday afternoon duplicate session will be run in memory of Norrie Buxton The £3 table money, plus any donations you would like to make, will be given to Target Ovarian Cancer.
For this session there is a sign up sheet on the board. Please sign this sheet if you are playing so that we may have adequate tables laid up for the afternoon. I’ll make sure the sign up sheet is in the Bridge Room at upcoming Duplicate sessions. All standards of players are welcome.
On the following two Mondays, 3rd and 10th February, play will be for the Founders Trophy. To qualify for this you must play with the same partner for the two sessions. No sign up is necessary, just come along to both sessions.
On the notice board in the Bridge Room is a contact list with names, emails and phone numbers. It currently only has a few names on it. If you would like your contact details to be added then please let me know and I will add them to the list.
We are running a new Beginners’ Class with Tim Chanter. The course will start on Tuesday 21st January at 7.30pm. If you would like to come please sign up at Reception. If you need more information please contact Val Lanceley.
Due to demand we have decided to run a new Supervised Play session on a Monday evening. The first session will be on Monday 20th January at 7.30pm. This is very much aimed at new and inexperienced players. Please come along. The cost will be £3 per player.
Julie Bacon, our match convenor writes:
‘We are always looking for more pairs to sign up to play in the matches for Roehampton Club against other clubs and we would like to hear from regular pairs who would be interested in taking part. The standard of play across the teams we compete against can be quite varied so there are opportunities for less experienced players to take part. Please check the notice board for information about upcoming matches. Sheets tend to go up about six weeks before a scheduled match.
However, teams scoring and tactics are different to the normal duplicate so it is a good idea to get some practice at playing teams bridge. We hold a monthly teams event on the third Friday of every month at 1.30pm which is a good opportunity to get some experience, so why not gather a group of four and have a go?’
The next teams’ practice event is on Friday 17th January and there is a sign-up sheet on the Bridge notice board in the clubhouse Reception area.
Sorry for a moan so early in the New Year, but play in the Duplicate room by some players is very slow. We have the technology for a three-minute warning before the end of each round with no bidding being allowed after that bell has been sounded. This would mean that if you haven’t started bidding your final board at that point then the Director would either award an average on that board or he would assess who was at fault for the tardiness in bidding and award a percentage accordingly. I would really prefer this not to happen so would ask everyone to try and keep up to speed with the play. We will assess the situation in a couple of weeks.
17th January, 1.30pm – Teams’ Practice
20th January, 7.30pm – Supervised Play session
21st January, 7.30pm – New Beginners’ Class starts
27th January, 1.30pm – Duplicate session in memory of Norrie Buxton
3rd and 10th February, both at 1.30pm – Founders Trophy
