The Early Years of BCCM
The bridge club we now enjoy took about two and a half years from founding to take the shape we know today. A number of those most involved with running the club during that formative period are no longer active with the club, so it seemed a good idea to write down a history of the early years before it all gets forgotten. To make this account as accurate as I could, I started by reviewing all the meeting minutes and other records from those early years and cross-checking where possible.
There were several well established bridge groups in Chiang Mai already, long before BCCM was formed. Probably the largest group, up to six tables, met on Sundays at Phil Watts’ house and was run by John Bucher and Neil Robinson. Previously, a good, competitive game had been held at John’s house. Subsequently, this combined with a social game organised by Penny Ellis at her house. Another successful group met on Wednesdays to play at Martin and Sheila Bagnall’s house. Chris Hedges had been running a “beginners and rusties” coaching session on Fridays since 2007, initially at private homes and later in a room over the Doitung coffee shop near JJ market. Other groups played in other private homes.
Martin and Sheila suggested the bright idea of bringing together many of these groups into one club. This was welcomed by the various groups and a meeting was held at The Pub on 28 February 2009 to set up the club. The meeting chose the name Bridge Club of Chiang Mai and elected a four person committee to run the club:
Chair---Neil
Treasurer and Membership Secretary---Penny
Organiser---Martin
Coach---Chris
An early BCCM list of founders and members of the club.
Founder Members Ordinary Members
Date Joined No. Name: Date Joined No. Name:
28 Feb. 09 101 Neil Robinson 15 May 09 201 Jean-Claude Barret
28 Feb. 09 102 Martin Bagnall 31 July 09 202 Richard Walker
11 March 09 103 Chris Hedges 02 Oct. 09 203 Jean-Pierre Aubin
28 Feb. 09 104 Penny Ellis 28 Oct. 09 204 Mark Barber-Riley
28 Feb. 09 105 Sheila Bagnall 11 Nov. 09 205 Carolyn Kaufer
15 April 09 106 John Bucher 06 Dec. 09 206 Cheron Gelber
11 Dec. 09 207 Brian Young
28 Feb. 09 110 Ann Ryan 23 Dec. 09 208 Truus Sanders
28 Feb. 09 111 Sean Ryan 23 Dec. 09 209 Harry Sanders
28 Feb. 09 112 Bernard Garwood 30 Dec. 09 210 Jacky Letendre
28 Feb. 09 113 Geoff Davies 31 Dec. 09 211 Toom Vijaykadga
04 March 09 114 Cecilia Yang 31 Dec. 09 212 Prasong Ingsuwan
04 March 09 115 John Archer 31 Dec. 09 213 Ake Vateetong
04 March 09 116 John Bales 01 Jan. 10 214 Stewart Simpson
04 March 09 117 Kate Heineman 01 Jan. 10 215 Murray Forgie
04 March 09 118 Tim Dickey 08 Jan. 10 216 Pascal Tanquay
04 March 09 119 Kit Salisbury 08 Jan. 10 217 Marjolaine Dionne
04 March 09 120 Kob Cavin 27 Jan. 10 218 Simon Laroche
04 March 09 121 Norman Moreau 27 Jan. 10 219 Thera Clark
04 March 09 122 Rado Nordtveit
04 March 09 123 Ruth Willmon
11 March 09 124 Dennis Hudson
13 March 09 126 Fran Decoster
13 March 09 127 Mike Williams
13 March 09 128 Richie Tierney
20 March 09 129 Dorothy Portch
01 April 09 130 Phil Watts
24 April 09 131 Cinda Rankin
24 April 09 132 Alan Saunders
A pressing question was where to play. The club needed a central location with space for a sizeable number of tables and, preferably, where refreshments could be purchased. Martin, Sheila and Neil, separately or together, visited many possible places. These included the YMCA, a room over a bowling alley, and various restaurants. None was really suitable. Mike Williams had proposed The Pub. This proved a fortunate choice and the association of Pub and club is still going strong.
By April 2009, a web site for the club had been set up and a Wednesday afternoon duplicate game, run by Martin, was being held at The Pub. The Friday and Sunday games were also part of the club. However, Chris did not want to let down the people at Doitung Café, who had been so hospitable, and the Friday session stayed there for a while. The Sunday session, with its long history of being hosted by Phil, also did not move and was at first run separately and not fully integrated until September. However, the comparative remoteness of Phil’s house by comparison with the central location of The Pub, impacted the attendance. The Sunday game eventually made it to The Pub in April 2010
Meanwhile there had been developments on the committee. Shortly after the committee was started, John joined. By mid-year, Sheila was also on the committee, but rather briefly because unfortunately both she and Martin resigned in September 2009. Those remaining (Neil as Chair, Penny as Treasurer, Chris as Coach and John as Scorer) ended up being the core of the committee running the club for all of its formative years.
After Martin resigned, Neil and John took over running the Wednesday game, in addition to the Sunday session. In October 2009, the Friday session changed character and Martin began running it as a relaxed duplicate game at The Pub. Subsequently, Chris’ coaching game moved to Mondays at The Pub. The pattern of games which lasts to the present was now set: duplicate games on Wednesdays and Sundays, relaxed duplicate on Fridays and a coaching game on Mondays.
Several more milestones followed. The club held its first “special event”, a club day in January 2010, with 36 players in an individual tournament organised by John. At the time we thought it a great achievement to have so many players, although since then attendance at club days has almost doubled.
By February 2010, we began to use pre-dealt hands and these appeared on the web site along with the results. The dealing had to be done by hand however. Also in February the club held its first AGM. Bernard Garwood was elected as the fifth committee member, and became Secretary.
In May 2010, Chris organised the first club away trip, to the Chiang Dao Nest. This was to be the first of many successful club trips since then, not only to the Nest, but also to other resorts and locations. Indeed, Chris ran a second trip to the Nest only five months later, in October 2010. Yet another followed only four months after that, in February 2011.
Thus almost all the elements of the present day club were in place by mid-2010: four sessions a week at The Pub, including duplicate and coaching sessions, together with periodic special events for members and away trips. The main thing lacking was automation. We still had to pre-deal boards and score by hand. The Committee had been wanting to change this for some time. The problem was lack of money. At the second AGM, in March 2011, the committee announced the intention to purchase a card dealing machine as soon as we could afford it.
In April 2011, two new members joined the committee, Stewart Simpson and Martin. The other element still lacking from the club was a training course for non-players who wanted to learn. Martin volunteered to run periodic courses. The committee continued to debate when we could afford to buy a dealing machine and scoring equipment. At last, in December 2011 we bit the bullet and made the purchase, even though it needed interest free loans from some of the committee members to tide the club over.
So finally, about two and a half years after it was founded, and after a lot of hard work by many people, the club became what it is today. So please enjoy it and support it
Neil Robinson
June 2014
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