The club is situated in the centre of Lancaster, close to the bus station and public car parks. We have our own dedicated accommodation with two playing areas which can be used for club sessions, matches and training.

Playing sessions are normally duplicate and are as follows:

Evenings:       Monday (7-10pm) Wednesday, Friday (7-10:30pm) 

                     Monday is for Beginners and Improvers

Afternoons:  Tuesday and Thursday (1:30-4:30pm)     

On Monday and Wednesday evenings and Thursday afternoons players are welcome without a partner.

Click this box for further details

The next charity evening is on 24th October, in memory of Alan Waters and in aid of the Fairfield Assoiation. For those not familiar with this organisation, more details can be found at http://www.fairfieldassociation.org

The list and format of club competitions held throughout the year has just been revised and can be viewed by clicking here.

Members' handicaps have been reviewed and amended. They can be viewed on the Handicaps 2016 tab under Membership on the left. New handicaps will apply to the first and subsequent rounds of the Taylor Cup.

The first round of the Taylor Cup should be played in September - see the club noticeboard for the draw.

We have now had a dealing machine for 4 years and as of 20 Aug 2016, it has produced 30,029 deals, some of which you may have preferred not to play.
Grateful thanks to Chris Evans and Tony Saville for taking on responsibility for running the dealing rota and undertaking future training

Several members have recently undergone training and joined the dealing rota, which now looks healthier than for some time. However, new dealers are still required to avoid over-reliance on a small cohort of members, so if you can help once every few weeks, please let Chris Evans or Tony Saville know.

After a break caused by the flood, Mike Cleaver resumed his Monday evening tutorials on 4th July. These will continue on the first Monday of the month, the next being on 7th November 2016, there being no tutorial in October. A resume of Monday's much appreciated talks can be found on the tab on the left.

To prevent flood updates taking up too much space on the main page, they have been moved to the Flood Updates tab on the left, where they can remain as a record. Click here to view the latest.

Most recent update added 1 July - inauspicious start to the move back to the club - click to view.

Bridge sessions will be held as normal at Chapel St from Monday 4 July

To avoid mistakes of using the wrong boards on the wrong day, resulting in the wrong hands being displayed on the website, could ALL members note the colours that should be used, as follows.

Monday - yellow

Tuesday - pale green

Wednesday - red

Thursday - pink

Friday - dark green

Click here or view the left hand tab for details of the Bridge Holiday in Spain in September.

Following the success of the B and C teams this year, the club now has a D team playing in the 4th Division of the Fylde League and captained jointly by Frank Sutcliffe and Robert Fildes. Let them know if you are interested in playing in the team.

To help promote this, a very successful and enjoyable Teams of 4 event was held on Saturday 25 June. Colin Mitchell  kindly gave a very helpful introductory tutorial on teams tactics and the differences between teams and duplicate pairs play.

Further events continue on a regular monthly basis, initially alternating between afternoon and evening sessions. They are open to all members and everyone is encouraged to attend, as it is hoped this will help with fund-raising following the flood. The next will be on Saturday 12 November at 2pm.

You can enter as a team of 4, as a pair, or individually on the entry sheet on the notice board, or on the website by logging in, click on find a partner, go to the relevant date and click playing, then enter your team.

As many of you know, Lancaster artist Patricia Haskey has very kindly given us three of her prints on long term loan

I have offered to sell some of her cardsP (made from her prints) in recognition of her generosity.

I have put a file, with full size examples of the cards and order forms in it, on a table in the club.

The cards are a specially reduced LBC price of £2.50 each or - a bargain- 5 for £10.

If you would like to order some please fill an order from the front of the file and leave it on the board for me or hand it to me.

They might make good Christmas presents!

Liz Dean

Robobridge (www.robobridge.com ) is free and whilst not the best user interface (no option for claims etc) it is very easy to use with the club website, if you want to play the hands on your own computer.

Go to the club website, log in, click on results and then on the date for which you want to play the hands.

At the top right of the ranking screen click on hands, then on the screen that opens, click 7 – Download as PBN.

Once you have installed Robobridge, click its icon to open it, then “Tournament”, then select “Open local tournament PBN” On the first occasion, you will have to locate the file you have just downloaded from the club website – it will have a filename like “lancaster_20151127_1.pbn” and should be in your downloads folder, surprisingly (such as C:\Users\Richard\Downloads ) Double click the file and you will be playing as South. But you can change seating position to play where you want by going to Options, select “Seats” and pick where you want to be.

You can then compare your score for the hand with those played by others at the club by referring back to the club website.

Before you start, it’s worth spending some time setting up your preferred convention card settings in Robobridge, but be warned, it plays a strong 15-17 1NT and with a very limited look, I haven’t found a way of changing it to a weak 1NT. Let me know when you have!

Any problems, don’t blame me! There is a limited online Help.

In an attempt to boost Thursday afternoon table numbers, a new partnership scheme has been introduced. So please turn up with or without a partner - and also sign up for the partnership scheme. Details available, somewhat predictably, under the Patnership Scheme tab on the left.

As in life, problems can arise at the bridge table. There are straightforward ones involving leads out of turn, bids out of turn and revokes which require a man or woman with a rule book and the knowledge of how to use it. There are also the more contentious issues over hesitations & claims.

Whatever the problem, the person who is there to resolve it is the director. However, there is best practice, and the watchword here is courtesy.

• Discuss problems with your table mates. A suitable starting point might be “I think there might be a problem. Do you mind if I call the director?” It is vitally important that new players feel involved & not intimidated & excluded by this process.
• The director should be called at an early stage before emotional temperatures start to rise. One person should call the director & be responsible for outlining the problem, though if there is a dispute about facts others will inevitably have to have their say.
• “Director please” is an appropriate and polite request for assistance.

The 80th Anniversary Party was held on Friday 20th March. A very successful night with 54 people attending and £190  raised for the Air Ambulance.