Ruth who was a stalwart of the Charlestown Bridge Club until the last few years, sadly passed away on the 6th of July 2023 at the Mater Hospital.  She was aged 99 years and 9 months and was a life member and founding member of the club.  She had amassed 895 master points and was a Gold Life Master in the Australian Bridge Federation Rankings. While a most competitive player, she was always courteous at the table and took time to encourage and tutor new players.  She had a cheeky way of playing a card as defender and then looking directly at the opposing declarer with an impish grin as if to say “What are you going to do about that!”

One of her proud accomplishments was to get a bronze medal for bridge in the Australian Masters Games held in Newcastle in 2001.  According to her son Ian, she proudly wore the medal at home for the next few weeks whenever anyone came to visit.  Her last official game of bridge at the club was at a special Sunday session put on in her honour on 17th November 2019. Subsequent to that, she played regular social bridge at home until January 2023.

Her son Ian generously provided the following information -

She was a 1st World War Widow, her husband, B. Guy Littler MC, serving with

the 1st Battalion and joining in 1915, aged 18. In 2015, she was sponsored

by the Dept of Veterans Affairs, together with nine other widows, to attend the 100th Anniversary of

the Gallipoli landings, in the company of her son Ian. She met the PM Tony

Abbott, the Governor General, had morning tea with the then Princes Charles

and Harry, and presented Prince Harry with an Akubra from the Australian

Government.

The Charlestown Bridge Club will remember her fondly and the President will initiate a new annual award in her memory, “The Ruth Littler Award for the most improved player”.

(John Stuart 8/8/23)

The Newcastle Bridge Club Annual Congress was held at the club in Broadmeadow on Saturday and Sunday 17th and 18th June 2023.  The pairs event was won by Jody Swaine and Paul Rooms with 4 wins and a draw and one loss, ahead of the strong pairs of Paul McGrath and Michael Simes 2nd and Chris Dibley and Michael Seldon 3rd.  Jill Achurch and Alan Hemmingway punched well above their weight coming 7th overall and 2nd in the restricted category.  Other Charlestown members playing were Cheryl Pletz and Pamela Kyte (2 wins and 2 draws), Cynthia Roberts and Margaret Vale (3 wins), Carolyn Carey and Julie Fraser-Easton (3 wins) and Brigitta Kuegler and Gai Brouwer (1 win).  Cynthia and Margaret excelled in the one field event, coming 23rd out of 32 and placing 3rd in the Novice section. Everyone in the event earned some red points with Jody and Paul getting the top amount of 3.58!!

The teams event on the Sunday saw the number 1 seeds, the McGrath Team, well ahead at the end (Paul McGrath, Michael Simes, Chris Dibley and Michael Seldon).  Second were the Swaine Team (seeded 8) of Jody Swaine, Paul Rooms, Deanna and John Stuart.  They started off with a moderate loss to the No 1 Team, but were able to follow up with 3 good wins and 2 small losses to finish up just ahead of the Mayo Team in 3rd position (Sharon Mayo, Greg Mayo, Christine Williams and Sally Clarke).  The All Charlestown Team of Cheryl Pletz, Pamela Kyte, Brigitta Kuegler and Sue McConnell finished in 8th position with 3 wins, while Alan Hemmingway and Jill Achurch playing with Vincia and Giles Martin did well to finish 11th out of 18 to win the Restricted Section.  Cynthia Roberts  and Margaret Vale playing with Libby Haydon and Lisa Rudd were unable to reproduce their winning form from the pairs and finished without a win, but would have benefitted from the experience and are to be admired for for their efforts against more experienced opposition.

The event was well attended over the 2 days and well directed by the very experienced Ronnie Ng.

The AGM was successfully held on December 9th.  Here is a picture of the  President cutting the Christmas Cake!  The President's Report follows:

Presidents report

Charlestown bridge club

By Janice McKay

December 2022

Here we are at the end of 2022 – another pandemic year! We have welcomed some new players to the club again this year which has been great and our numbers seem to be fairly stable at around 5 - 6 tables which probably isn’t too bad considering the pandemic; but I am always hopeful of greater numbers.  I was out of action for a while with my broken jaw, and away for 2 months in winter and I thank you all for keeping everything running so smoothly.

Your committee members have been working hard.  We had to lodge a financial statement to Dept of Fair Trading for 2020, so we had to have an AGM for 2020 which was a pandemic mix-up.  We have kept the club open all year and we have swapped and changed partners as various members either had Covid or were close contacts.  We still have members who are wary to play at present.  We continue with our covid-safe practices.

We purchased a new laptop during the year and our Bridgemates are operating quite consistently each week – a big thankyou to Rosemary for her massive effort, to Sarah for helping set up the new computer and to John for taking over so successfully when Rosemary was away. We are delighted that Margaret and Linda are becoming Bridgemate operators which really takes a lot of pressure off our small team – thankyou Linda and Margaret.  With Rosemary’s great manual, it is pretty straight forward, and if anyone else wants to have a go, just let us know – especially as Rosemary is stepping down from this role.

Our 3 pm starts seem to be suiting most (but not all) of our members so we will continue with this from now on.  We will continue to skip the supper break while the pandemic is on, and will reassess later – it certainly does save some time.  There is still some time for socialising before and after the game.

Very sadly this year, we lost Robert Shearer and a number of members attended his funeral (some of us did so virtually).  Robert was a Grand Master in bridge and had been a member of our club more than 30 years ago.  Dennis told me he was of great assistance in getting Belmont Bridge club up and running and he was a regular player there, as well as at Quicktricks and Newcastle.  He is missed by many.

Robert had been in training to take over the master point role from Dennis and Dennis has kindly continued to look after our master points which is fabulous – thankyou Dennis.  Secretary Cheryl has been keeping us running smoothly as always, Brigitta has been faithfully looking after our money, Sue has been running tournaments, directing, organising our program and doing lots of jobs such as running our mid-year AGM, Rosemary has taken care of our Bridgemates and continued to update the manual, John has been directing as well as managing the web page and the bridgemates; and Enza has stood up for me in my absence with my broken jaw and my trip away, audited the books, and she is a fountain of information with much of our organisational tasks.  Two committee members are rostered on each month to unlock, set up and lock up.  Thank you to all our committee for all your efforts.

Thanks also go to our non-committee helpers –  our directors – Dennis, Kerrie and Hans; and to Bob for all the running around he does for me.  All your help is very much appreciated. As I said last year, it really is a team effort at this club so a big thank you to all of you who assist with setting up and tidying up – many hands make light work!

There will be no increases to our table fees for next year.  I’ve also had a request to give a bit more education, for example, which bids are alertable, so we might re-introduce that next year.

We are now purchasing pre-dealt hands from Newcastle Bridge Club which has been a lovely initiative.  We are lucky to afford such a luxury for such a small club.  We can play without dealing, and we can have the hands loaded straight onto the computer.  Thankyou to Brigitta and Cheryl and others who drop the cards to Newcastle and pick them up for us.

While I have been President, I have awarded my special prize each year – usually to non-committee members who have gone above and beyond.  This year I’m donating a different prize.  In memory of Robert, who LOVED penalty doubles and constantly winged to me that players don’t use them enough, I have purchased four free bridge tokens which will be awarded to the first four successful penalty doubles played tonight or on subsequent weeks.  Please call to me when it occurs.  Robert told me, not long before he died, that an inexperienced player had recently doubled him at Belmont Bridge Club and he had gone down a number of tricks.  He was so proud of this person who had doubled him!!

We have our programmes here and you can start filling in your invitation partners today, so grab a card and start making bookings.  Most of our experienced players are happy to play with beginner players on some of the invitations, so don’t be afraid to ask.  It is also a good opportunity to invite one of your other bridge playing friends to play with you on one or more of those nights to introduce them to our club.

Thank you all for your great bridge and for your support this year.  Please feel free to give us your suggestions throughout the year.  I wish you and your families a very safe, healthy and happy festive season and I look forward to playing Friday bridge with you in 2023 – hopefully in less turbulent times.

Charlestown entered one team in the regional final of the Grand National Open Teams (GNOTS).  Brigitta Kuegler and Cheryl Pletz teamed up with Enza and Tony Di Stefano to represent the club.   There were 16 teams in the final and we were seeded 12th (on total masterpoints).  There were 4 teams from Newcastle and Maitland, 2 each from Tomaree and Hawks Nest and one from Tilligery, Toronto and Muswellbrook.  The competition took the form of 6 x 10 board matches and Charlestown started off playing Newcastle 4 (seeded 4), a strong team. We were defeated by 17 IMPS as the team was finding its feet.  The next match  against Muswellbrook (seeded 7) was much closer as our team got used to the conditions.  There were several significant swings but Muswellbrook prevailed by 6 IMPS leaving us in 14th position.  Round 3 saw us pitted against Maitland 3 (seeded 13th) and was very close. After giving away 10 IMPS on board 22 we recovered well on the last 2 boards to make a N/S game on Board 29 while our E/W took it down and on the last board Cheryl and Brigitta sacrificed in 5 clubs doubled going off 300 while Enza and Tony made 5 Hearts doubled for 750 to bring the two teams level for a well earned draw and 0.2 Gold Points!!.

After lunch, now in 13th place we played Hawks Nest 1 and suffered a moderate defeat dropping to 14th position.  Spurred on by the thought of finishing up with the wooden spoon, we had an excellent result against Maitland 4 winning by 32 IMPS and bringing us up to 11th position.  The highlights were 2 x 12 IMP swings when on Board 16 N/S defeated a 3 NT contract which E/W made and on Board 19 the same thing happened.  With a good win under their belt and a further 0.4 of a Gold Point, the last round was against the Newcastle 3 Team (seeded 3) with Enza and Tony while missing a 3NT contract on Board 22, redeemed themselves by doubling 6 clubs on Board 24 for a 12 imp swing when Cheryl and Brigitta made 3 NT, and getting significant swings on Boards 23 and 25 to finish up winners by 9 IMPS.  So after languishing in the bottom 4 for most of the day, Charlestown finished up 7th, a very creditable result well above their seeded place of 12.  And earned ONE WHOLE GOLD POINT!!   Well done Team!

Full results available on NBC website.

John Stuart

The Country Teams Regional Final was held at the Newcastle Bridge club on Sunday 31st July.  Charlestown  was represented by Brigitta Kuegler, Sue Haines, Deanna and John Stuart.  The day was organised and directed by Ken Wilks and took the form of a 6 round 8 board teams competition.  There were 4 teams from Newcastle, 3 from Maitland, 2 from Tomaree and one each from  Tilligery and Charlestown with a Newcastle "House Team" to make up an even number of 12 teams.  Charlestown started of against the Newcastle 4 Team and suffered a 13 imp loss to be in 9th position after the first round.  The second match was against Maitland 3 which we won narrowly by 3 imps.  The 3rd match was a loss to Tilligery by 5 imps and then we had another win against Newcastle 3 by 3 imps.  The fifth match was the highlight for us with a 19 imp win against Maitland 2 to bring is into 5th position with a real chance of progressing to the next round.  Unfortunately this brought us up against the very strong team of Newcastle 1 (Sharon and Greg Mayo, Paul McGrath and Michael Simes) who well and truly beat us by 61 imps, they finishing 2nd.  We all enjoyed the day, especially Sue Haines who had not played in a regional final before and acquitted herself very well.  The teams to qualify were Newcastle 2, Newcastle 1, Newcastle 4, Tomaree1 and Tilligery.  We finished up 8th, but less than 5 VPs from 5th position.  All team members contributed and earned some red points and we were reassured that Charlestown is a competitive club at this level.  Full results can be found on the NBC website.

John Stuart  6th August 2022