Hemel Hempstead Bridge Club

Chairman’s AGM Report 2015-16

During the past year we have continued to run Duplicate Bridge nights on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Attendences have fallen, particularly on Thursdays and Tuesdays. We are continuing to run Bridge on Thursdays until December, but if numbers do not improve, there is a possibility that Bridge will cease on this evening. We are planning an Open evening in an effort to increase membership.

 All evenings use duplimated boards and I would again like to thank David Blasebalk for running the Duplimate machine. We do not use Bridgemates although they are under regular review by your committee.

We ran our open Swiss pairs event on Sunday 28th February. It again proved successful thanks to Derek Peers for organising the event and David Blasebalk for duplimating all those boards,

My thanks to  Susie for organising the Christmas Party ably assisted by Pat Henry. They both put in a tremendous about of hard work to make the event a success. Unfortunately, after many successful years of organising the party, they will pass the baton to others for future events.  

We introduced a number of fun items into the Bridge, which seemed to add to the enjoyment, so we hope to do something similar this year..

We are not planning any significant changes to the calendar (except the Open evening) or competition rules, except to include the evening of the Smith cup and the Tuesday Trophy in their respective Ladders. We  will continue with our local rule (as per the noticeboard), which has helped to speed up play.

The Club won the Herts Club Championship (The Desmond Flockhart Trophy) again. We had never won this trophy until five years ago, now it is appearing a “regular” in our Trophy cabinet!

The winning team was  June Ball, Helen Robinson, Derek & Lesley Peers, George Summsrs, Julian Peers, Roger Edmonds and myself.

I have to report the sad loss of Owen Frith and Pat Ricketts who both passed away last year. Pat had been a member for many years and served on the committee. Owen was also a long serving member, regularly playing on Thursday evenings.

Finally a big thank you to all those who have served on the Committee;  Cliff Short,  Paula Morton, Lesley Peers,  Joanne Turner, Barry Moule, David Blasebalk, Roger Edmonds, and Naomi Gibbs.

Paula is retiring after many years as secretary. Thank you Paula for all your hard work.

 If anyone would care to join the committee it would be much appreciated.

I would also like to thank  Derek Gowlett for organising  Tuesday’s bridge;  all our Directors and Scorers;  Roger Edmonds for the web site;  Anne Short as our membership secretary. The Club couldn’t function without their help.

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David Stimson