Most of you will know that David was taken to Wexham Park before being transferred to the specialist stroke unit at High Wycombe hospital in early July. He'd lived on his own for several years following the death of beloved wife Rene, and it seems that he'd spent the previous night in his garage, presumably having felt unwell following the signs of a stroke and intent on driving himself to hospital.

David passed away peacefully last Saturday evening in the Denham Manor home to which he'd been transferred from the hospital.

David celebrated his 90th birthday in December last year, and a few of us were delighted to assist in this celebration in one of his favourite restaurants in Burnham.

David's passing is very sad news to all of those who knew him. He'd been a Burnham stalwart for several decades, representing the Club in league-of-8, partnering Bob Holder in the Burnham team that won the Nicko Plate in 2014, directing the monthly teams evening for many years, acting as Webmaster, and being the most delightful partner that many of us were fortunate enough to play with.

David was SBBC's manager from its outset in 1994, and will forever be linked with the establishment of Laurie Champniss's wonderful enterprise.

Beyond Burnham and SBBC, David was a great supporter of Berks & Bucks, playing and succeeding in many County events. He also directed County events, and acted as the B&B webmaster for a number of years; his services were recognised by the County when he was made one of its three current Life Members. Further afield, David directed the annual MCC teams event held in the Long Room at Lords for many years, and he enjoyed joining the group of local bridge players who travelled to France regularly to play at bridge clubs and in local tournaments.

Outside bridge, David enjoyed opera, collecting recordings and streaming live major UK and international performances. For many years he organised an outing of picnic-plus-open-air-Shakespeare at Beaconsfield's Hall Barn. He loved having birds in his garden. Until a few years ago he was a keen golfer.

The list goes on.

There will be no formal funeral, but the family is intending to arrange a gathering to celebrate David's interesting and varied life.

Thank you David for the special friend you've been to all of us; we're going to miss you.

We were delighted to resume what had been the long-standing annual match between the two clubs following a 3-year Covid-enforced interruption, though possibly slightly less delighted to have to return the shield to Ascot's stewardship. Congratulations to Ascot following their 22-imp win.

But the real winners were the 48 players who took part, in many cases resuming friendships which had been in abeyance for too long. The results of the match include a pairs cross-imp analysis as well as the gory details board-by-board in the Information page.

The Club AGM is taking place via Zoom on Wednesday 19 July at 4:30pm, and typically lasts half an hour.

The Club constitution requires that a minimum number of members 'attend' so, if you're able to spare half an hour, please let Graham Dickens know so that he can let you have the relevant Zoom credentials.

Members may find the various AGM-related reports via the Membership heading on the menu.

As the programme has now drawn to a close it's been a disappointing season for the three Burnham teams.

Despite getting off to a strong start [with a 20-0 win against our B team], the A team narrowly failed to repeat last season's stellar performance, and had to be content with second place behind a strong Reading A team. Partly as a result of the A team's strong start, the B team will be waving goodbye to Division 1.

Our third team plays in the Chiltern League, which means we can call on members who are tied to other clubs as far as Berks & Bucks is concerned, and also occasionally on A- and B-team players. The team had to be satisfied with the bronze medal, gold and silver going to the two Newbury teams.

The Club very much appreciates the efforts of all members who played in one or other of the teams, and we all owe a particular vote of thanks to the team captains who take on the organisational role as well as managing their teams. We're hoping the same members will be up for the challenge again next season, and we're always delighted to welcome fresh blood into our league-of-8 ranks.

Many of last night's players have reported that they'd noticed an error in the results on the Club website, an error which also affected the upload to the EBU.

The problem was that everything to do with hand 3, including its hand record, was duplicated as board 4. The error has now been rectified on the Club website, and the corrected results have been uploaded to the EBU; these will take effect during the EBU's overnight NGS update run.

Thanks to everyone who spotted this and reported it.

The CIN Commentary can be found on the ECATS website, or by clicking on the result on this website - the Commentary has been added as an Information page.

The Burnham weekly duplicate on November 7^th will be in support of the BBC's 2022 Children in Need appeal.  The event will be a simultaneous pairs duplicate, based on material provided by ECatsBridge;  the material includes:

• Distribution of the hands before the event
  • A hand commentary written by a bridge expert that will be available from our web site the next day
• The production of an international ranking based on all the results from the 100+ clubs that will be playing the same boards that we do

Table money will include an additional amount of £5.  Of this, £4.50 will be donated to the appeal, the other 50p being a contribution to the admin costs of ECatsbridge.  The EBU always waives its Pay to Play charge for this event.

This year, SBBC are contributing all of our usual £3 table charge in support of the appeal;  altogether, £7.50 of the £8 total table money will be donated to the appeal.  Burnham runs only one charity event per year.

We are hoping for a “bumper” turnout, in support of this well deserving charity.

We have upgraded the website to Bridgewebs version 2.19q. This version introduces changes to the presentation of results but, if this isn't to your taste, there's the facility to switch back to the previous layout.

If you have any related comments that you'd like brought to Bridgewebs' attention, please let me know.

Our B team completed its programme a couple of weeks ago, and finished in third position in the Berks & Bucks Division 2, respectable but well out of contention.

Our A and Chiltern League teams both contrived to keep us all holding our breath until the final two matches in their respective leagues. 

Our Chiltern team went first on Wednesday 20th, starting the day with a 2VP lead over Newbury A, but a 2-18 deficit in the match against Newbury left Burnham as runners-up.

Could the A team do any better on Thursday evening? The situation here was slightly more complicated. Burnham's match was against the formidable New Amersham A, and the title would go to the team gaining 13 or more VPs. Whereas a closer result would leave Reading A at the top of the division. But it's congratulations to Charles Chisnall and his team, as they trounced their [did I say formidable] opponents 19-1.

Winning the B&B 1st Division is a tremendous achievement, but the three captains involved [Charles, Graham Dickens, Nigel Lancaster] would like to thank all those members who took part  in this season's matches: you made our jobs easy and very enjoyable.

We have twice weekly sessions of good standard Duplicate Bridge at the very attractive South Bucks Bridge Centre - a purpose-converted 16th Century barn in its own grounds, between Beaconsfield, Maidenhead and Slough 

Our main session is at 7.30 every Monday evening, when we play Pairs, except Teams of Four on the third Monday each month except when this is a bank holiday.  A host is available to play with anyone without a partner on Pairs evenings.

We use Bridgemates, for instant scoring, with current scores displayed on a large screen.  Hand records and results print-outs are available within a few minutes of the end of every session. 

Several teams from the Club compete in the Berks and Bucks League of 8, with the A team in the first division.  We also encourage less experienced players and hold monthly free seminars before the start of an evening session.