Picture gallery from the Oxford Junior Bridge Club Winter Competition – November 22^nd 2015

George Anstis and Lizzy van der Veen played 36 hands in 5 hours on Sunday 8th February 2015 and both received prizes. The entry contained a lot of VERY good players and George, playing with his grandfather, came 27th from 40. Very well done.

George Anstis and Lizzy van der Veen have completed their silver award using bridge as their skill, and are both continuing bridge towards their gold award. Scarlett Anstis has obtained her bronze award. Congratulations to all three of them.

We were awarded a grant from the trust worth £2500 to cover the purchase of 500 new boards and 1000 packs of cards in December 2012. This will enable us to continue to support new schools with pre dealt hands from the EBU minibridge teaching hands.The original purchases, together with two dealing machines, were financed by a lottery grant to the Chiltern League in 2010.We are also supported by the Berks,Bucks and Oxon associations- effectively local players.   

During March each year schools and clubs play the same hands of cards in different places. These are called 'Sims'. As they are all playing the same hands, they can be scored nationally when they are put together.
This year, Berks, Bucks and Oxon did fantastically well as the results show below.
BRIDGE- 219 pairs
4th George and Arthur Anstis Wallingford
11th George Cooper and Joan(adult)
MINIBRIDGE -60 pairs
1st Lynne Puddifoot & Jamie Arlott Faringdon
2nd Lewis Crossley & Aaron McNeille Elangeni Amersham
4th Caitlin Nugent & Ellie Vockins Nettlebed
6th Rutendo Ganga & Mia Wright Faringdon
7th Katie Jarvis &James Wilson Wallingford
9th Elizabeth Cooper & Jemima Smith Kidmore End
10th Ishaan Chaudhury & Mathew Stan Wallingford
 
 

Congratulations to Joan Bennett who has been awarded the Tom Bradley Award

This award is presented in memory of former Board Member and EBU Treasurer Tom Bradley and is given to a non-serving school teacher who has made a significant contribution to junior bridge.

The schools bridge programme was an idea that Joan formulated in the summer of 2009. Joan sold her accountancy practice and retired from business. At the same time she retired from coaching synchronised swimming and looked for a new outlet for her energy and enthusiasm. She decided she wanted to help increase the number of bridge players by concentrating on teaching bridge to school children. She attended the Partner Teacher course at the EBU and soon after was appointed as the teacher at the local sixth form college who wished to add bridge to its sixth form enrichment programme. Joan worked from the set EBU teaching hands for Minibridge and Bridge and felt she could use the approach at Primary Schools.

She recruited volunteers to join her and, with the help of Alison Nicolson, developed two one day teaching courses which allow a volunteer to gain confidence in their ability to teach minibridge and bridge to school children. With the help of the EBU the first twenty volunteers were trained, and a application to lottery fund allowed the purchase of two dealing machines, a thousand boards and packs of cards.

Joan is for ever seeking to expand the list of volunteers and has persuaded Berkshire & Buckinghamshire CBA and Oxfordshire BA to share the funding of future courses for volunteers. They also set aside budgets to support the more general expenses of running the project. The county sponsorship has meant that events, including minibridge sims competitions, have been run free of charge with the counties paying the rent and the refreshments. As the project has grown the positive experiences of head teachers means that new schools are actively seeking the chance to take part. Ofsted has been very positive about all of the school bridge clubs.

Joan has further expanded the scheme into Hertfordshire and Dorset, with more targets in sight. There are 100+ volunteers and some claim that their own game has improved as a result. There have been very few schools or volunteers drop out, and nearly all the large number of volunteers and pupils involved thoroughly enjoy the experience.

Joan is pictured receiving the award from Michael Byrne.

Freddie Illingworth formerly of The Dragon School and MCS, and now an undergraduate at Cambridge has just been awarded the title of young player of the year by the EBU. He is a member of the England Under 20 team and played in China, France, Netherlands, Ireland Denmark and Poland.
He first joined the Under 20 squad when he was 13-even though he only had a basic knowledge of bridge, he soon picked new things up every time he attended a training weekend and went from strength to strength. The opportunity of playing a lot of hands, combined with learning about new bidding systems improved his bridge no end, and the chance to make new friends and play with and against different people his own age is a huge benefit.
The great thing about the Under 20 squad is that it is open to everyone-even very new players who have only just started. There is NO minimum standard and everyone is welcome to come and have a go.
Anyone interested should contact the squad leader Michael Byrne on abbot_hugo@hotmail.com

On 21st May 5 tables of children played in an end of year bridge competition. They came from Cookham, Downley High Wycombe, and St Peters Marlow.

The joint winning pairs North South were Leon Bennett and Bradley Powell from Downley and Will Reeve +adult from Cookham with 66%.

The East West winners were James le Fleming and Jon Tindal from Cookham with a remarkable 91%.

The children all left with badges and goodies having enjoyed the spice of competition that made the day different from a routine session, Many of them are year 5s and will be returning in the Autumn.

The EBU national sims (simultaneous pairs) has finished. Schools players can look on line to see how they compared against others across the country.

At the First Oxfordshire Junior Congress, held on 24th February at Roke, Oxfordshire, the following children came joint first:

Bridge

George Cooper and Louis Johnson, Kidmore End Primary School;  Kayleigh Smith and Beth Summers, Charlbury Primary School.

Minibridge

Roos Goette Hoosch and Carla Russell, Nettlebed Primary School;  Henry Neal, Kidmore End Primary School

For a full report with pictures click on the link to the First Junior Congress in the left hand panel. On some PCs and ipads it may be necessary to click on the Home Page link first. 

This was the first issue of our magazine. Please click here or on the link above. The most recent issue is on the EBU page.

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  House of Lords
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  Joan Bennett with Stoke Row children on the Terrace
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  Kidmore End at house of Lords

Baroness de Souza with Amersham children in the river room before playing against their lordships. (top)

Joan Bennett with Stoke Row children on the terrace with the London Eye in the background. (middle)

Pupils from Kidmore End. (bottom)

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  March Roke
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  March Roke2
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  March Sims

Children and volunteers from Oxfordshire and Berkshire at the March 2012 heats of the English Bridge Union minibridge simultaneous pairs in Roke and Henley.