SpadeHeart 
Ashbourne Bridge Club
 DiamondClub
Release 2.19p
To find a Partner....

... please use the WhatsApp group for the Club

ASHBOURNE BRIDGE CLUB CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2024/2025

Please click on the following link for full information:

Calendar of Events.pdf

CBAI and North Eastern Region Fixtures 2024-2025

Please click on the following link for full information:

2024-25 CBAI North Eastern Region Fixtures.pdf

UPCOMING COMPETITIONS 2025

Please click on the following link for full information:

2025 Lor Sheeran Trophy Navan Open Cup.pdf

 

PLAYER OF THE YEAR AND NOVICE OF THE YEAR 2023-2024

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Congratulations to Denis O'Shaughnessy
Player of the Year 2023 - 2024

NOVICE OF THE YEAR

Congratulations to Pat Daly
Novice of the Year 2023 - 2024

 

BRIDGE ETIQUETTE

Members are kindly requested to familiarise themselves
with the following document on Bridge Etiquette. Thank you.

Bridge Etiquette.pdf

HANDICAP SYSTEMS IN CLUBS

Please click on the following link to read full information:

Handicap Systems in Clubs.pdf

LOCAL CLUB RULES

Don't forget that local club rules are available at the tab on the top left hand side of the screen.

Bridge Promotion Saturday 3 September 2022

Miriam, Breda and Ian at the very successful Bridge Promotion Day in SuperValu Ashbourne on Saturday.

Many thanks to everyone who volunteered to (wo)man-the-stand.

Website update ...

.. photos and news from our last season can be found under either the

Competitions tab or News tab

COVID-19 NEWS
COVID-19 INFORMATION FOR BRIDGE CLUBS

Dear All,

Do

Wash your hands properly and often.

Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve when you cough and sneeze.

Put used tissues into a bin and wash your hands.

Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.

Try to avoid close contact with people who are not well.

Follow the Travel advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs

Don't

Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth if your hands are not clean.

Wash your hands

You should wash your hands:

  • after coughing or sneezing
  • after toilet use
  • before eating
  • before and after preparing food
  • if you are in contact with a sick person, especially those with respiratory symptoms
  • if your hands are dirty
  • if you have handled animals or animal waste

To All CBAI Members

Dear Friends

Just a friendly note to make sure we are hanging in there in this time of crisis.  We have just gone through a very tough month, with another one coming up. Let me first say we are all missing our bridge and the only reason we are not playing together is Health & Safety. The main part of this sacrifice is to save lives.  If we can save one life by our actions the sacrifice is worth it for the right reason, that one life could be your own.

A lot of people have contacted me by phone, text, or email asking what we should do as bridge players at this time. Well beside the obvious play online, studying our bridge books and wondering when we will be back at bridge, let’s make a few suggestions:

  1. Call your bridge partner/s to see how they are doing
  2. Pick one person per day that you know in your club or other clubs, call them and say hello
  3. If you are under the “cocoon age” call someone who is stuck at home alone and see do, they need help.

Now I know many of you are doing these things but for those who are not these are three simple things you can do now to make a difference.  You will feel good after doing them a few times. We are all very VULNERABLE right now and when you are VUL you don’t take chances. We need everyone back when this is all over, so play safe follow the guidelines, if you need anything, email or text and we will do our best to solve your problem.

By the way if there is anyone on your list who you may have a difference with, now would be a good time to call them and say hello, especially if they are home alone right now.

Folks we will get over this, hopefully without too many scares.  Don’t forget we are one Big Bridge Family across the country and don’t forget Families all lookout for one another.

Keep Well – Keep Safe follow HSE.ie guidelines

Yours Sincerely

Neil Burke

President CBAI


Dear All,

Firstly some news on events –

Our last bulletin told you that everything had been cancelled / postponed up until the end of April, including the IBU Seniors Congress.

I can now confirm that everything scheduled for May and June and into July is now cancelled / postponed also – This includes Carlow Congress, Killarney Congress, Yeats Country Congress (Sligo) and Ballina Congress; 4Fun Teams, IBU Clubs Pairs (Both), IBU Egan Trophy. The organisers of Dublin Congress, which is scheduled to be back in Westmanstown this year, are holding off on making a decision until the situation is clearer.

A few things that might interest you – From Bridge author Marty Bergen mbergen@mindspring.com

  **BIG discounts for all of 2020 to help "fill the void" while quarantined

                                             (The perfect gift for yourself and/or friends)

By taking advantage of this unprecedented sale on our 50 interactive AV online lessons, you'll happily keep busy while acquiring many valuable tips that are guaranteed

to improve your bridge skills in a very entertaining way. To see the 50 topics, click here.

The normal price of a lesson is $25.  However, for the rest of 2020:

When purchasing lessons for yourself or others AT ONE TIME (whether different ones or same lesson for several contacts),

as long as the total is 5+  your cost is only: 5-9 = $19 each; 10 or more = $15 each!

(If you prefer transcript only, costs are 5-9 = $17 each; while 10 or more = $13.50 each!)

More good news: Once you place an order, we'll honor that special price for YOU on all YOUR future lesson orders in 2020 regardless of the quantity you want at that later time!

Our thank you bonus:

All who take advantage of this offer will also receive a nice assortment of my best lesson PDFs.

If interested or with questions: Email me, or call me at 561 531-3228 between 6AM - 4PM Eastern time.

Please stay safe!

Best wishes,

Marty Bergen

 

From Andrew Robson – teacher and International player

Daily "Bridgecast" reaches 1,600 subscribers

Dear Bridge Player,

It's amazing that within 48 hours of launching, my daily Bridgecast has passed 1,600 subscribers. As we head towards 2,000 we have decided to make a donation to the Mental Health charity MIND, particularly given the effects of isolation on so many people.  If you have not yet had a chance to take a look, please do so by clicking here. You can continue to watch the first two days Bridgecasts free of charge, but each day from today (Saturday 28th March) onwards will be available only to subscribers. The monthly subscriptions cost £7.99 plus VAT for either the Intermediate or Advanced channel, or you can subscribe to both for £11.99 plus VAT. 

Starting soon: BridgeCast for the less experienced and beginning Bridge player

We are thrilled and delighted to find ourselves with 2,600 subscribers to our BridgeCasts, launched last week. It's wonderful to be part of such a strong and thriving Bridge community. Thank you so much for your support.

Many of you have asked us to start a BridgeCast for Beginners, for those who have never played before, for those in the early days of their Bridge learning or those who have played for a while but just don't feel very confident.

And we are delighted to announce that we are about to launch one.

From today, if you Click Here, you will be taken to our BridgeCast home page (via Patreon.com).

You'll find a section for Beginners and there you will find a welcome video from me and an explanation as to how the Beginners BridgeCast will work.

For each of the next four days we will provide a link to the first four lessons from my Learn Bridge series, free of charge, so that those who have never played before can familiarise themselves with the mechanics of Bridge, before the first BridgeCast is posted on Monday morning. Monday and Tuesday will be free of charge, thereafter it will be by subscription at £7.99 plus VAT per month, around 30 pence a day.

I hope people will see this as great value. It's a unique time to learn Bridge. We have put a lot of thought into how to do this, so people feel engaged and part of the Andrew Robson Bridge community -- while we are all isolating.

Please do pass this on to friends and family who you think may be interested. We want this unique opportunity to learn Bridge to reach as many people as possible. Thank you very much.

With very best wishes and keep well,

 I  hope you enjoy it.

WIth best wishes,


Dear All,

Let me pass on some potentially very useful information to you.

A son of one of our members is a Consultant in St Vincent’s Hospital, Dr Oran Rigby,  and with a colleague he has developed an online resource that might be very helpful to you and your members.

“At a high level, it's all about the power of the collective providing greater advice to the individual.

The people whom this vicious virus is most targeting is the elderly and those with co-morbidities or pre-existing chronic illness -  (In Ireland that’s over 1 million people over 65) - the very people who would benefit from both a sequential assessment, advice and in due course virtual communities.

 Therefore we are striving to get the message through to this cohort.

We've developed a Covid risk assessment & monitoring tool, as per our site www.Akkure4Covid.com and are seeking groups with extensive reach to older and vulnerable members of the community >60 years old in Ireland, who would be open to sharing this across their member base.

 Developed by expert Dublin based consultants in Intensive Care & Disaster medicine and lung & respiratory illness, it takes approx. 1 minute to complete. “

I have undertaken this assessment exercise myself and it is not in any way intrusive – with the possible exception of “are you morbidly obese?” – to which I answered “No”. Apparently there are different definitions of “Morbidly obese” and I suspect that perhaps you will know from your doctor into which category you fit – but if the question had been perhaps “Are you built for comfort or speed?” I would have been happy to answer – Comfort!!

 I realise that absolutely nothing about our current situation is in any way amusing but I would suggest that you might find this www.Akkure4Covid.com a very useful tool to give yourselves a degree of comfort, without burdening your GP; alternatively, it might just provide the impetus to get you to contact your doctor to get help for yourself.

 

The site provides an almost instantaneous response, so please do try it and pass it on to all the members you can contact. Don’t pass judgement on the resource because it may not be of benefit to yourself – let everyone make their own choice.

There is no cost involved – but there could be enormous benefit in the comfort it could give to an individual.

This Covid-19 situation is not going away any time soon and we want to have you all fit and ready to get back to our wonderful game just as soon as we can.

 Kind regards

 

Paul