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July 2020 Newsletter


Membership

It is great to be able to start this newsletter with a welcome to three dozen new members – many new to bridge - and we look forward to welcoming them to playing sessions. Being kind and considerate to less experienced players is the order of the day! Please look out for and welcome ...

Kay Austad, Anne Allen, Nicholas Barclay, Catherine Barclay, Frances Barron, Monique Cadman, Monica Cheng, Maxine Christie, Rosie Cormack, Carole Davies, Margaret Dickinson, Pip Duncan, Sallyann Fitzgerald, Trevor Goldschmidt, Christine Hargrave, Colin Harvey, Jocelyn Henry, Jill Hope, Sharyn Joyce, Jillian Lander, Jackie Latimour, Daire McCraken, Helen Nalepa, Helen Robertson, Jan Russell, Edward Sayers, Charlotte Skegg, Maurice Smith, Vaughan Smith, Gary Swift, Gael Taylor, Liz Thompson, Annette Tills, Deborah Walsh, Cheryl Willets and Gillian Willoughby,

Financial outlook

Members should not be surprised to read that we anticipate a small trading loss for our financial year ending 30th June 2020. Our accounts are under review by our financial auditors and we expect initial statements in early October, ahead of November’s AGM.

Despite lock-down, cancellation of our major Easter and Queen’s Birthday Congresses and a drop in our premises' rental income, we remain optimistic about the outlook.

Of particular note are the wonderful flow of donations to the Club by both members and players from around the country, the vital support received from the government’s Wage Subsidy schemes, and special efforts by staff to minimise costs and to provide online bridge during lock-down - and particular thanks to those club members who helped set up BBO online bridge facilities, which were used by thousands of players around the country and the world.

Aside from the obvious crash in activity during lock-down, club session attendances have returned to normal. We are benefiting from the lack of international travel.

Our focus on bridge education and learning seems to be working. We have about 30 keen learners. These are run with helpers by Julie Atkinson and Mike Dunn.

Attendance at seminars is encouraging and shows a healthy interest in learning and refreshing techniques.

The increased range of session choices available to less experienced players seems to be boosting membership, and, we hope, improve longer term retention. In this light we are considering a second “supervised play” session to complement the current Thursday 10 am session, perhaps on Tuesday mornings upstairs.

The open-house Monday afternoon experiment has attracted some new faces.


Another welcome

We are delighted to welcome Denise Mayhew to the Club Office. Denise is a keen evening player and is contracted for 15 hours a week. She has many years of experience in office management. Denise’s parents, Joan and Owen Mayhew, also played at the Club.

Session start times

We plan a second electronic survey of members starting Friday 7th August about the experimental changes with session start times. 

The experiment runs until 31st August and changes, if any, will take place after 31st August. 

The second questionnaire will not be anonymous so that there is a correlation between those voting on specific club sessions start times, and whether they are (or were) regular attendees of the session in question. There will be a labour-intensive provision for members unable to respond electronically, available via the Club Office.

May we also remind members to make sure that the Club Office has your correct email addresses?

Electronic table money payments

Our project to introduce ClubHub for automatic payments for Club sessions is back on track after lockdown delays. Each member will be asked to deposit table money funds in advance which the balance is then automatically deducted via a link between the scoring tablets and ClubHub.

No doubt there will be some teething problems and we ask members to be patient during the transition from paper to electronic tickets

The rationale for introducing ClubHub is to reduce Club Office costs. Many will be aware that our bank, ANZ Remuera, has reduced its opening hours and likely shuts in August making the move towards a cashless regime even more important. 

Reminder

The health and well-being of all players and staff at your club is important so please stay away of you are feeling unwell, coughing, sneezing etc…

Board

Time roars by and this year’s Annual General Meeting is scheduled for Sunday 15th November. One or two long-serving Board members have indicated they may not stand for re-election after many years of diligent service to members. If you’d like to represent your fellow members on the Board, please let the Club Office know. The Board meets about ten times annually.

Coming up

Malcolm Mayer, World Bridge Master, 2 x Friday Night workshops 31st July & August 7th, Aggression, when to go hard and when to back off
INTERCLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS (SAT) 1 August All grades
THURSDAY PAIRS (THU) 6 August 8B Open
TUDOR BRIGGS ROSEBOWL INTERMEDIATE PAIRS (SAT) 29 August 5B Intermediate
BILLIE TOHILL OPEN PAIRS (SAT) 29 August 3A Open
THURSDAY PAIRS10 September 8B Open
THURSDAY TEAMS 15 October 8B Open
WES DODD OPEN PAIRS (SAT) 17 October 5A Open
NATIONAL 15A TEAMS 7 November 15A Open
THURSDAY PAIRS (THU) 12 November 8B Open

AJH President

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