Congratulations  to Anne O'Brien and Ann Pollock, winners of the Christmas Prize 2023.

Presentation took place at the Club Christmas Dinner which was held in the Model Farm Restaurant, Model Farm Road.

Club Championship Winners 2024

Congratulations to Kathleen O'Connell and Noreen Fox on winning the Club Championship

Well done ladies.

Congratulations to Patsy Fitzgerald and Doris George, winners of the Club Championship 2023

Treasurer of Wilton Bridge Club, Cora Twomey, making a presentation of €500 to Anne Hegarty on behalf of Enable Ireland, from the President's Charity Fund, on behalf of the members of Wilton Bridge Club.

Heretofore, the Journal was a printed publication run initially by the late Paddy Walsh, and latterly by his sister Una. Between them, Una and Paddy published the Journal privately for forty-two years ... a fantastic service to Irish bridge! Recently, Una decided to call time on her publishing career, and the CBAI is delighted to take over the publication of the Journal, and, we hope, to maintain the excellent standard set by Paddy and Una.

There will be a few changes to the format. We have moved online, and rather than the previous subscription model, the Journal will be in future be provided to all CBAI members free of charge via email and on our website. We'll also be producing four editions a year rather than Paddy and Una's six.  

You'll find the first edition of the new Journal here - https://www.flipsnack.com/pda99/cbai-irish-bridge-journal-winter-2022-2023.html, and we hope you will enjoy it. I would like to thank our editor, Enda Murphy, all our contributors, and Sue Power for her super design for the publication. You'll find lots of interesting articles and stories on bridge, both in Ireland and overseas, and the new Journal continues the tradition of both a Bidding and a Play Quiz, now co-ordinated by Bob Pattinson and BJ O'Brien respectively. Please give them a go; the CBAI will provide modest prizes to the best performers over the full year in several grade categories.

We'd welcome your feedback on the new Journal, and, as Enda notes in his editorial, we're also in the market for contributions, especially from intermediate, novice, and junior players. We are also seeking another advertiser or two to help to pay the bills, so if you know of a business keen to make regular contract with the bridge community, we can offer an inexpensive solution.

Finally, please keep an eye on the calendar on our website for upcoming events, and support them if you can. In the next few weeks we have:

• Galway Congress (3/5 February in the Ardilaun Hotel, Galway);
• Holmes Wilson National Teams Championship (11/12 February in the Mount Wolseley Hotel, Tullow); and
• Novice & Intermediate Congress (17-19 February in the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs, Cork).

We hope to see you at one or more of these events. With best wishes for a safe, enjoyable, and sociable, second half of the bridge season in 2023.

Winners of the President's Prize 2023

Fionnuala O'Callaghan and Mairín Heffernan

being presented with their prize by President Jane Bracken.

Congratulations to all our Prize Winners.

CBAI Member Survey Results

The working group tasked with plotting the future relationship between online (“virtual”) and face-to-face bridge undertook a survey of CBAI members last August to assist them in their deliberations. They got more than 4,000 responses, which was an excellent rate, and demonstrates just how much bridge players care about their game. Our thanks to all who took the time and trouble to answer the survey; your answers formed an important element of the review, and of the recommendations the group made to the CBAI Governing Council. We’ll be publishing more on that shortly.

For the moment, we would like simply to present the results of the survey.

2022 CBAI Member Survey Results

Some of the key points to emerge from the analysis were:

• More than 85% of respondents played online during the pandemic, nearly all of them on BBO.
• This does not, of course, mean that 85% of all CBAI members played online, although data obtained separately from BBO suggests that around two-thirds of all CBAI members played on that platform, so the online cohort was very sizeable.
• More than 70% of the respondents who played on BBO played in a virtual club, and around 19% played in national competitions or congresses.
• In terms of future preferences, around 14% of respondents indicated that they would play only (3%) or mainly (11%) online in the future, with half this group stating that this decision was permanent. Another 20% said they expect to play 50/50 face-to-face and online, and a further 40% said they would play sometimes online, so the majority of our members expect to play at least occasionally online in future.
• Just over a quarter of respondents do not see themselves playing online at all any more.
• Combining those two points, around 90% of respondents expect to play at least some face-to-face bridge, and some 75% see themselves playing some online bridge. This makes it clear that for the membership as a whole, the future is one in which both variants of the game will play a part.
• The reasons for preferring online were varied (people could choose more than one option here). Personal health concerns scored 55%, other health concerns 20%, cost 11%, dislike of going out at night 30%. The biggest single scorer was simple convenience (65%), which again demonstrates that organised online bridge should not be regarded simply as a Covid-related phenomenon.
• The age profile of our respondents, while not a surprise, was a stark reminder of just how big a challenge it is to get younger people involved in bridge.

Our thanks again to all who responded to the survey. If any member would like more information on any aspect of this exercise, we’d be happy to provide it.