Angela Fenton has kindly offered to be club matchmaker. So, if you want to play and need a partner, please let her know (contact details here). She can’t perform miracles and isn’t volunteering to act as host, but she’ll do her best.

Congratulations to David Piper for passing his Director's Course exam. He will take over as lead Director for the Club once Marcia has made her escape, and will join the Committee. 

Congratulations also to Val Mollison for achieving the rank of Grand Master. The full Essex Ranking List is here. 

There has been some chattering of teeth towards the end of the sessions over the last couple of weeks, as the heating had been turning itself off at 22:00. The timer has now been reset to switch the heating on at 18:30 and off at 23:00, so there should be no problem ongoing unless Marcia forgets to call the moves on time.  

We are advised that: 'During those hours, the thermostat by the door at the hall hatch will operate all the wall heaters to the (hall user) selected temperature. However, each heater has a fused electrical switch. In addition, each heater also has a pull cord which can control the setting of the heater as off/low/medium/high.  It is not necessary for these to be manipulated, but people often do.'

11 pairs contested the CiN SIMS on 11th November, and the full 'takings' of £110 were donated to the charity. 

Bernard and Albert won fairly comfortably and came 33rd out of 1196 nationally. Links: Local; National. 

At the AGM of 3^rd June 2025, it was agreed to trial a scheme to encourage new members. As such, a partnership that has not played at the Club in the last two years, if ever, and wants to find out how things are going, is invited to play at the Club on two occasions FOR FREE. We ask all our members and guests to advertise this scheme by word of mouth wherever possible. We also encourage lapsed members or guests to take advantage of the scheme.

Also, if a Club member invites and plays with an appropriately qualified non-member (as above) both can also play for free if they would not have played at the Club but for this scheme.

At the recent AGM, it was decided temporarily to override the Club Constitution and elect Theo Todman as Chairman in addition to his Secretarial and other duties. The situation will be reviewed over the coming year. 

Angela Fenton was also elected to the Committee. 

Our thanks go to our retiring Chairman, John McCoy, who has looked after the club so energetically over most of the last decade. We wish him and Marcia well in their new home in France when they move there towards the end of the year. 

The minutes of the AGM have been finalised and are here. 

We no longer seem to trumpet these things - if we ever did - but the annual ladders reached their conclusions at the end of March 2025 and the final standings were:-

Individual Ladder:-

A 3-way tie for first place between

• Jacek Lapszys 
• Sandy Riach
• Peter Oake

Partnerships Ladder:-

1. Pat Johnson & Simon Moorman
2. Jacek Lapszys & Sandy Riach
3. David Piper & Graham Beeton

Well done to the winners and to one and all for taking part!

Click on the 'Ladder' headings above for the full final standings, which are for the best 30 sessions (minimum 15). 

The Club aims to be one of the strongest in Essex, so it was about time we proved it. Well, the Club's entry in the Cornell Trophy won the competition! The team was: David Piper, Theo Todman, Sandy Riach and Jacek Lapszys. Additionally, David & Theo came fairly comfortably top in the X-IMPs, with Sandy and Jacek in 6th place (of 26 pairs). Well done Team! For the details, follow This Link. 

The EBU has reissued the Blue and White Books which detail all the laws that govern our beautiful game in England. Unless you suffer from insomnia, I suggest you start off with the brief 'changes' documents. The rules on Announcing and Alerting are a source of continual confusion to some - and they have changed again. The two-page summary (item 2 below) is a useful document. Click on the titles to find the documents on the EBU website. 

1. Reasons for and details of the Blue Book changes
2. New Blue Book Announcing and Alerting Summary
3. Blue Book list of changes
4. White Book list of changes

• Blue Book (with change marks)
• White Book

I play on a Bridge website playing teams and happened upon a Swedish Team's logo, fortunately in English:

Play Fair

Play for Fun

Play for Knowledge

Play among Friends

Couldn't have said it better - so its now on the page heading!