A new year of lessons start very soon. We have an Open Night on Thursday, 11th. September at 7.15 p.m. in the Clubroom. There is no charge for this event and people can come and get a taste of the game.

A week later, Thursday, 18th. September, at 7.15 p.m. in the Clubroom lessons start for the year and last for two terms up until Easter. So, once again, if you know of anyone who would like to larn the basics of this game then please persuade them to come along to the Open Evening so that they see the facilities at SADBA. Every year we need all of our members to do their bit to get people introduced to the game. 

Things seem to be going ahead nicely.

The Planning Application for change of use at the  Sunningdale Road premises has now been granted.

If all goes well we could see the new Club up and running before Christmas this year.  

The dates for the Club Championships and Cup events have been agreed on.

They are:-

Monday 14th. and 21st.January Championship Pairs

Friday 15th. and 22nd. February Championship Teams

Wednesday 12th. and 19th. March Championship Pairs

Wednesday 9th. April Simultaneous Pairs

Friday 25th June and 2nd. July Poutney Teams

Monday 28th. July Simultaneous Pairs 

Here are further pictures of the Sunningdale Road premises as they are before refurbishment.

I have decided to set up a "wish list" for the new premises. I will start it off with the following.

Bridgemates for electronic scoring. No more travellers.

New bridge tables. Some of the ones we use are over 30 years old and most of the rest are at least 20 years old.

New chairs.

New cloths for the tables.

Going back to the new tables, we need those with recesses to accommodate the new bidding boxes that we should get.

Side tables to rest our drinks on.

C.C.T.V. for security reasons.

Disabled parking at front of building.

Barbed wire round roof for security.

Lighting for car park. 

Security system for entering and leaving the premises. This might be by a swipe card or numberpad system.

Any other things that you think would be an improvement to the Club then please let us know. 

Wednesday June 4th.

Our valuer has always said that the minimum value of our Club was £150k. and he has wanted to have a meeting with Mr. Chant about this. Vic invited Mr.Chant to look around the Club and he came last Friday. He was very impressed with what he saw and recognised the amount of work that had been put into the building over the years. He went away to have a think about things.

This afternoon there was a meeting between Mr. Chant, our valuer, Mr. Pascoe (solicitor) and Vic Llewellyn. This meeting only finished about an hour ago. Mr. Chant has agreed to pay an extra £5000 for the Club. This values it at £155000 + 7.5% disturbance payment which comes to over £167000 in real money. An absolutely brilliant effort by our side. I am certain that there will be even better news before everything is settled but more of that later.

With regards to the change of use application, there is conflicting information about the likely date for this. On the Council website the date given is July 7th. but other information suggests July 20th. Perhaps we should be conservative and hope that we are given approval by the end of July and that we can start to do things in August.

Anyway things are going far too well at the moment and something  negative is bound to happen soon. Fingers crossed.

At the latest meeting of the SADBA Management Committee it was decided that the use of Announcements should cease with immediate effect and the Club should revert to what was used before August 1st. 2006. This decision was taken because players were not using announcements when they should do and that there was a feeling that the use of announcements was unpopular.

if you click onto the results page you are now able to the hands that have been played on that particular session. This would not be possible if we had not purchased our Duplimate machine so that is another advantage for its introduction.

We are trying to update and improve the website and to remove any mistakes that are on it.  It all takes time as the labour and time and effort is given for nothing.  The people that keep this going deserve praise not criticism.   

Members of the Club will be saddened to learn of the deaths of two of our ex-members recently. Last Saturday, Hamish Kilgour passed away after a long illness which he fought against for a long time but was finally beaten. Hamish was a member of the Club for many years and he won many of our Championships with several different partners. He became a player of a high standard and was always a gentleman at the bridge table and away from it.

Mike Poutney died on Wednesday morning, again after many years of ill health. Mike was both a keen chess player in his earlier years and a keen bridge player. He also won many of our Competitions over the years with many different partners. He was a member of the Club for many years, from the 1970's.

Both of these players will be sadly missed and our condolences go to both of their families.

SADBA has just received a copy of the proposals of the EBU Board for the advancement of the game of Duplicate Bridge.At first sight these proposals look very radical and are bound to cause a lot of discussion amongst players,even if they are not members of the EBU at the moment,and your views will be sought in the near future.

Copies of the proposals will be on the club noticeboard by the end of the week and I suggest that you have a look at them and talk about them with other players because it would seem that these ideas will cost the club and members money in the long run and your Management Committee will want to know your views about these proposals.

There is no doubt that the EBU is in need of a good shake-up and,at last,somebody has arrived at headquarters to do it.So have a look at the new ideas,let the Club Committee members know what you think about them and then we can go to County Committee meetings and try and influence the County's view to the EBU.   

The Club held it's A.G.M. on Tuesday night (11/09) and afterwards a session of duplicate bridge was played.The turnout was 7.5 tables and a 3-board Mitchell movement was used.The winners N-S were Michael and Isabelle Wilson with a score of 66.67% from Drene Brown and Janice Hill with 61.29%.Playing E-W the winners with an enormous score of 79.63% were Vic and Mike Llewellyn and a distant second came Derek and Margaret Hornsby with 51.39%.Thanks to all the members that turned up to the A.G.M.