Congratulations to the following current and former students who reached these masterpoint promotion steps in April:
Judith Simpson  Premier Master
Janet Cross  Local Master
Mair Mitchell  District Master

Year 1 sessions will be back at the Rothley Centre on MONDAY 30 MAY (we couldn't make the planned 23rd May start date).  Then 6th June and fortnightly thereafter.

The combined Year 2 and Year 3 sessions will start on MONDAY 6 JUNE and fortnightly thereafter.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES
We will be holding two sets of Monday events EVERY FORTNIGHT when the Rothley Centre reopens.  We have been given no official reopening date yet but we are hoping for (and planning on) a start on MONDAY 23 MAY and fortnightly thereafter until (and including) MONDAY 29 AUGUST.  If the Centre has not reopened by 23 May, we will start on Monday 6 June.

GROUP A.  CURRENT YEARS TWO AND THREE STUDENTS AND OTHERS
Brian, Jim and Stuart will be running a mixture of supervised play and duplicate bridge sessions, helped by Bridge Buddies.  You don’t need a partner to turn up. 

These sessions will be open to all the existing students and also to members of the CBT group who have been unable to attend the past term’s lessons but simply want some bridge practice. 

The Group A session will be in Lounge Room at the Rothley Centre, starting at 10am and finishing around 12.15. The cost will be £2 per head per session, payable on the day, and there is no need to pre-book.  Just turn up, and if we have an odd number of people, a Buddy will partner the ‘loose singleton’.

GROUP B.  CURRENT YEAR ONE STUDENTS
Gail, Richard and Ruth will be running supervised play sessions for the current Year One students covering the topics they have been learning during the past term.  These sessions – the group B sessions - will be in the Committee Room at the Rothley Centre from 10.00 to 12.15 and will be restricted to the current Year 1 student group.

As above, these will cost £2 per session and you won’t need a partner – a Bridge Buddy will be on hand to partner the ‘loose singleton’.

AUTUMN TERM
There will then be new terms for brand new beginners, and the current Year 1 and Year 2 groups, starting at 10am on Monday mornings at the Rothley Centre in late September. 

If any of you know of any brand new beginners who want to learn bridge from scratch, ask them to get in touch with Richard (email address below) and he can give them details of the course starting in September.

EASTER BREAK
This will give the teachers and Buddies a well-earned break over the Easter period.  However, this is no excuse for you not to make up your own groups for some friendly practice – if you want advice about how to do this online we can provide it, but bridge is far better played face-to-face over a glass of vino! 

Members’ contact details are all on the members’ area of the database – if you struggle to access this, drop Richard an email – richard.rees227@gmail.com.

If you are playing socially and come across any hands where you think ‘How should I have bid/made that contract’ just drop an email, with the hand, to any one of the teaching group.

Best wishes and a Happy Easter to you all,

Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth and Stuart – Charnwood Bridge Teachers.

CHARNWOOD BRIDGE TEACHERS – SPRING AND SUMMER

The end of another teaching term is quickly approaching, with the final duplicate session on Monday 15^th March.  Congratulations on staying the course through what has been quite a challenging term, in many ways!

We are now planning the bridge for the rest of this year until we reach what we hope will be the start of a new teaching year of Face2Face bridge in October.

Whilst learning to play bridge has a definite starting point, there is no end point. How far we take you depends very much on what you want to achieve from the game. We believe that, if you were to apply everything that we have taught you so far, you will be very competent to play an enjoyable and sensible game of social bridge.

We are also aware, from your feedback, that there are those of you who are not happy that you have fully grasped the complexities of some of the later lessons and still struggle a little with the card play, and that providing you with yet more information and new techniques at this stage might be overloading you.  

Equally there are some who are straining at the leash to press on, learn more and move towards tackling competitive Club bridge head on. To both groups we would say that bridge is learnt over a lifetime – there is no finishing line to which you have to race and taking your own time in getting to where you want to be is the best way to enjoy the game.

With these thoughts in mind we have the following programme planned over the next few months.  We also have a brief questionnaire at the end.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. 

Brian, Gail, Richard Ruth and Stuart - Charnwood Bridge Teachers

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PROGRAMME UNTIL OCTOBER

EASTER BREAK

The Teachers and Buddies will be taking a break after the 15^th March session, resuming on Monday 19^th April.  There will be no organised duplicate sessions over this period, but we are sure you will continue to play among yourselves. 

Some of you have asked how you can upload the set hands onto a BBO session so you can run your own group of four, practicing what you have been taught.  We would be happy to show more of you how to do this if you would find it helpful.

NEXT TERM

For the 10 weeks from 19^th April to 21^st June, we will be running a new Term.  This will be along similar lines to the current term in that there will be five tuition sessions and five duplicate sessions, at the same times on a Monday morning.

However, there will be some changes.  The main difference is that we will be using RealBridge, not BBO, as the platform for running teaching tables and duplicate sessions.  RealBridge is a relatively new bridge platform which allows you to see the players at your table on a video-link, and talk to them.

The other major difference is that we will be running two separate groups in the five tuition sessions:

• The first group, the Improvers or ‘Blue’ Group, will have supervised play of 12 hands, dealing with the topics we have already covered in the lessons to date, to help them to reinforce and consolidate what they have already learnt.
   
• The second group, the Advancers or ‘Red’ Group, will be learning new topics through a Zoom lesson (just as we do now), followed by teaching tables with set hands exemplifying that topic, but using RealBridge as the platform.

As both of these groups will be running at the same time, we would ask each of you, with your partner, to decide which group you would like to join for the five teaching sessions.  In order to balance our resources, we may have to allocate you to one group or the other, but we would like you to make the initial choice yourselves.

The Duplicate sessions in the intervening Mondays will be run just as they are at the moment, but again we will be using RealBridge rather than BBO as the platform.

The cost of the course, for all students, will be £40 per head, payable in advance to Gail.  If you have lost the bank details for the direct credit, please contact Gail.

SUMMER CLUB

After the end of next Term, starting on 28^th June, we plan to run a Summer Club, on RealBridge, on Monday mornings at 10am.  This will be just like the current duplicate sessions although we will run a few more boards. 

There will be no need to sign up for this in advance; you can drop into any session you wish.  We will pair up those without a partner, and if there is an odd number of players on any Monday, there will be a Bridge Buddy available to pair with.

More details on the Summer Club and the dates of the resumption of Face2Face teaching will be available in due course.

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QUESTIONNAIRE

NEXT TERM

Do you want to carry on learning to play bridge for another term?        

 Yes        No

If so, which group would you and your partner prefer to join – the Blue Group or the Red Group?  [Bear in mind that, depending on the replies, we may need to allocate students to one or the other, in order to manage our teaching resources]

 Blue – consolidating what we have already covered      

 Red – learning new topics, having already assimilated what we have done so far

SUMMER CLUB

      Is the Summer Club something that would interest you?

OTHER

     Do you have any other suggestions as to how we can help?

Please drop any of the teachers an email if that’s the easiest way to respond to this.  We will need responses from everybody as to the group they would like to join.

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We are sorry to report the sad news that one of our members, Penny Rowe, has passed away, after a lengthy battle against cancer.  Penny had had to withdraw from the course of lessons at the Rothley Centre because of her treatment, but was very pleased to have been able to rejoin the group online.

We have passed on a note of sympathy to Sam and the family.

Charnwood Bridge Teachers

LESSONS – REMAINDER OF THIS TERM
As you will know, our last lesson at the Rothley Centre will be this Friday’s lesson on 19 November. 

You will have all been told where future lessons are held to complete the current term:

Year 1 – Hallam Fields Community Centre on Monday 22 and Monday 29 November

Year 2 – Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall annex (separate entrance from the main VH, at the bottom right corner of the car park) on Monday 22 and Monday 29 November

Year 3 – Quorn Village Hall on Friday 26 November and Friday 3 December.

LESSONS – NEXT TERM
We will be resuming a course of 10 lessons for Year 1 (at Hallam Fields) and Year 2 (at Woodhouse Eaves VH Annex) at 10am on Monday 17 Jan 2022. 

Year 3 lessons will continue to be at 10am on a Friday.  We have secured Quorn Village Hall for all of these lessons, which will start on Friday 14 Jan 2022.

COST
The cost for each of these terms will be £80 as before, payable in advance to Gail Tillen – you should have the details but please contact Gail if not at gailtillen@live.com  We hope to see you all next term.

Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth & Stuart - Charnwood Bridge Teachers

SPRING TERM

We are making arrangements for the Spring term, starting on 19^th April.  As you know from the note we sent out some time ago (also on the website) we will be running 5 lesson sessions on Monday 19 April, 3, 17 and 31 May and 14 June.  We will be running 5 duplicate sessions (with a subsequent commentary on learning points) on the intervening Mondays 26 April, 10 and 24 May, 7 and 21 June.

All of these sessions will be run on the RealBridge platform https://realbridge.online/ .  Several of you have already used this, but for those who haven’t, we recommend looking at the ‘For Players’ section on that Home Page, and also the Player guide here: https://realbridge.online/player-guide.html .  It’s also worth testing whether your equipment works by using the camera and microphone Test Page here: https://play.realbridge.online/camera.html

We will be running a practice session just to get people accustomed to the platform, at 10.00 on Monday 12 April.  You will get a further note about this in due course.

As you know, we are arranging students into two groups:
Red Group – learning new topics at a Zoom lesson at 10am, and moving onto RealBridge teaching tables at 11.00

Blue Group – going straight on RealBridge teaching tables at 10am with supervised play of practice hands, reviewing topics we have already covered.

We are delighted that we have been able to accommodate all of you into the groups you have asked for; there is a full table plan at the end of this note.

It would be helpful to give Richard as much notice as possible of lessons you will be away for, so that he can rearrange the tables as necessary.  E-mail to richard.rees227@gmail.com is easiest.

NEW TEACHER

We have added an extra teacher to our ranks – Jim Miller, who you will meet in due course.  He will also be with us when we return to face-to-face lessons.

PAYMENT

The cost of the 10-week course is £40 – Gail has already been in touch with those who haven’t yet paid.

Looking forward to seeing you all again on 19^th April,

Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth, Stuart - Charnwood Bridge Teachers

Just a note to let you know of the future plans for CBT this year.

SCHOOL’S OUT

Term ends on Monday 28 June (that’s the last lesson for the Blue Group – the Red Group have already broken up for their summer holidays 😊).  

We hope you have all enjoyed having your brains stretched a little!

SUMMER 2021

We will be having duplicate sessions on RealBridge through the summer, starting on Monday 5 July.  These sessions will run until classes resume in the Autumn (see below).

We are increasing the number of boards from 14 to 16; we hope to get these done in the same time as our current sessions, now that you are all more experienced.

The log-in code for each session will be put on the Home Page of the CBT website https://www.bridgewebs.com/charnwoodteachers/
each weekend.  It makes sense for you to bookmark this page so you can find it easily.  There will be a different log-in code each week.

If you don’t have a partner but want to play, please log in to the session, wait in the lobby and make a comment ‘partner wanted’ in the chat box.  It is easiest for us if you pair up with each other beforehand though.   There will be one Bridge Buddy available to partner any singleton left alone after everyone has paired up.

Some of you have friends who are registered as students, but have taken the summer off and haven’t been attending the spring term.  In case we miss them in this circular, can you let them know that they will be very welcome to join these duplicate sessions.

There will be no charge for these sessions, for all registered CBT students.

AUTUMN TERM

The provisional plan (all being well) is to return to Face-to-Face lessons for all of you on-line students from early October, at 10am at the Rothley Centre on a Monday morning.

We will be teaching you in two groups –
 - Year 2, which will comprise the Blue Group who have spent last term on consolidation, and
 - Year 3, which will comprise the Red Group who have already learnt new topics. 

Please let Richard know if you think you are in the wrong group at the moment.

We also plan to run lessons for Beginners (including those who know some of the basics but have no coherent system) from early October on a Friday morning at 10am at the Rothley Centre.  If you know anyone who may benefit from this, please let Richard know.

This is a provisional plan, dependent on two major variables:
a)  government guidance and
b) the availability of the Rothley Centre, which is undergoing a major refurbishment between July and September – returning to F2F teaching will depend on the Rothley Centre’s reopening date.

With best wishes to you all for a happy summer break,

Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth and Stuart

A quick reminder of balanced hands:

• If the hand contains a 6+-card suit - it's NOT balanced
• If there's a 5+ card suit and a 4+ card suit - it's NOT balanced
• If it's a 4-4-4-1 shape - it's NOT balanced.

ALL other hand shapes are balanced, because all that remains is:
                  4333       4432      5432   
which are the three balanced hand shapes.

Just under half (47%) of all the hands you are dealt fall into the three balanced hands shapes above.

16 October 2019 - Richard Rees

We hope you all enjoyed this morning's lesson. 

If you want to practice playing between the lessons and have nobody to practice with, all students' contact details are in the password-protected Members Area of this website.  The first time you click on Members Area you will be asked to set your own password, then you can see the membership list.

Please contact me for any administration queries, and also email me to let me know whether you will not be able to make a particular lesson, so we can get the notes to you.

See you next week for some more brain exercise!

11 October 2019 - Richard Rees

The notes from Brian's seminar this morning are in the 'Summer sessions' file on the left hand tab

TO ALL REGISTERED CBT STUDENTS

RETURNING TO CLASSES 😊
We will be resuming bridge tuition at the Rothley Centre in late September.

There will be three classes:

• BEGINNERS on a Monday morning – [that won’t be relevant to you] run by Richard and Ruth
• YEAR TWO on a Monday, 10.00 to 12.15 run by Stuart and Jim
• YEAR THREE on a Friday, 10.00 to 12.15 run by Brian

Gail will be a support teacher this term, supplementing the other five for weeks where we have gaps. 

The Year 2 class will be for the current Blue Group and those of the Red Group who feel they need further practice on what they have learnt already.   The course will start with three sessions where we will play, and then talk through, hands which exemplify topics we have already learnt, to make sure that these have been fully absorbed.  The next seven lessons will cover new topics which the Red Group learnt over the summer.

The Year 3 class will assume that you have mastered everything we have covered so far, and will move forward with new material.  Year 3’s will be joined by less experienced players from local clubs who will be learning the new material alongside you.

DATES
Year 2 will start on Monday 20 September, and Year 3 on Friday 1 October.

ROTHLEY CENTRE
The Centre will close for refurbishment part-way through the term (some time after 30 October).  If we cannot find suitable alternative accommodation locally, we will defer the rest of the term’s lessons until the Centre reopens.

If we have to defer some lessons until the reopening (or if another Government lockdown intervenes) we hope to continue the weekly online duplicate sessions on RealBridge until we can complete the term’s lessons.

COURSE COST
The course will run for 10 lessons; the fee (payable in advance to Gail, Treasurer) will be £80.  Please contact her - gailtillen@live.com – if you need the bank details again.

The fee will be rebated, pro rata at £8 per lesson, to students who drop out after the first two lessons, if they find the course unsuitable.  Course fees will also be rebated pro rata if we have to break after the Centre closes and the alternative accommodation, or future dates after reopening, are unsuitable for them.

CHANGES IN ROUTINE
We will try to make the courses as similar as possible to 2019 lessons, but there will be a few changes (in addition to the Covid-related notes below):

• We will not be handing out course notes at the end of each lesson – these will be available, together with set hands and quizzes, on the website for you to print at home.
• We will still be using Bridge Buddies, but these may be one per two or three tables rather than one per table in view of the size of the student group.

COVID
One of our teachers recently attended the EBU Summer Congress in Eastbourne, and we will be following the protocols and routines which were experienced there. 

In brief, the EBU guidelines and practices (suitable emended for CBT) were:

• Tables will be more generously spaced than usual.  
• Hand sanitizer will be available in each teaching room, but not at each table.
• Players will handle the cards and bidding boxes as in a usual club session, but may bring their own bidding boxes if they wish.
• Players may wear masks if they wish.
• Players will not be asked for “vaccine passports” and should be aware that fellow-students and/or teachers may not be vaccinated.
• We will try to avoid crowding in the kitchen area [details of this to be worked out].
• Players are asked not to come to the event if exhibiting signs of Covid infection.

QUESTIONS
If you have any questions please email Richard as administrator - richard.rees227@gmail.com 

We are looking forward to returning to teaching, and we hope to see you back with us.

With best wishes

Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth, Stuart – Charnwood Bridge Teachers

As a result of the PM's advice on Coronavirus this evening, we have no option but to stop all CBT teaching activities with immediate effect.  

Once the 'All Clear' is sounded, we will resume with the Friday Summer club.  Year 2 for the Beginners and Improvers alike will start on Monday 28 September (Improvers) and Friday 2 October (Beginners).  We will be in touch about registration during the summer, but places are reserved on those courses for all the existing students.

We are sorry to have had to curtail activities so near to the end of the course - we managed to complete Year 1 for the beginners and all but one lesson for the Improvers (Lesson 10 notes will be on the website in due course).

We have enjoyed the experience, as we hope you have.

Stay safe and well!

Charnwood Bridge Teachers - Brian, Gail, Richard, Ruth and Stuart (not forgetting the 7 Bridge Buddies - Diana, Helen, Jill, Lesley, Penny, Sarah and Susie,)

Contract – 7NT by South (ie a grand slam – contracting to make all 13 tricks)
Lead ♠ 10
Can you see how it's done??

2 November 2019 - (Copyright - "Mr Bridge" magazine)

Next term will start on Monday 7 October - 10.00 to 12.30.  As before, Years 1 and 3 will be in the Rothley Centre and Year 2 in Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall.

In addition, there will be two preliminary sessions for those who have not played before, at the Rothley Centre starting at 10.00, on Monday 23 and Monday 30 September.

Congratulations to Susan Humby, who is now a Local Master, with points gained from finishing well in local bridge club sessions.
 

We hope you all had a good Christmas and are looking forwards to a Happy (and bridge-filled) 2023!

The next term of lessons will resume at 10am on Monday 16 January - Years 1 and 3 will stay at the Rothley Centre, but the Year 2 lessons have moved to Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall (as we have lost one of the Rothley Centre rooms). 

The term will run for 10 weeks, with the last lesson being on Monday 20th March.

Gail will send out a reminder about payment in due course.

With best wishes,

Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth and Stuart

The Autumn term, for new students (Year 1) and Years 2 and 3 will start at 10am on Monday 3 October, and we will be running two preliminary sessions for brand new players on the last two Mondays in September.

We will have the same six teachers (Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth and Stuart) and we will be using all three rooms at the Rothley Centre.  We look forward to welcoming you back. Further details will follow in due course.

If you have any friends who would like to learn, please ask them to contact Richard - richard.rees227@gmail.com

Wednesday Bridge: 10.30 at the County Bridge Club

A message from CBC’s Chairman, Ian Walkerdine

Would you like to play more duplicate bridge? If the answer’s yes, why don’t you join us on Wednesdays?   We offer a friendly, weekly session designed for improvers. I run the event myself and follow it up with a commentary

To enter, please visit the County Bridge Club website, make sure you complete the registration form*** and we’ll send you an invitation.  You’ll need your EBU registration number. We play up to 20 boards and aim to finish by 12.40pm.  There’s a charge of $3BBO per person

Need more information? Contact Lucy Pathan on 01509 557220.

***Please note that the registration form is on the main County Bridge Club website (https://www.bridgewebs.com/cbc/) , not on the (CBCT) County Bridge Club Teaching website

Bridge can be a solace in troubled times, and we are continuing to run our lessons as normal.  Tomorrow is the final class for Year 1's, and Monday the penultimate for the Improvers.  In both cases, we will be running a voluntary competition on the Friday/Monday following the final lesson.

However, events are moving rapidly and we would advise you to listen to any changes in Government advice, particularly in relation to public gatherings and the over-70's.

Please do not come to lessons if you feel unwell; we know that you will already be following the existing guidance on hand-washing and personal hygiene.  If you can't join us for lessons, the student notes will continue to be put on the website after each lesson.

We do hope that as many of you as possible can continue to join us - we are enjoying the experience as much as (we hope) you are!

With best wishes,

Richard, Brian, Ruth and Gail

Congratulations to some of our former / current students on their latest Masterpoint promotions, gained from finishing well in local bridge club sessions:

Judith Simpson  District Master
Caroline Connor  Area Master
Annette Love  Local Master
Sarah Braithwaite  Local Master

 

We are back to lessons in February  

VENUES
We have been able to rebook the usual venues, while the Rothley Centre is being refurbished, so we will be starting the spring term on the following dates:

Year 1 - Hallam Fields at 10am on Monday 7th Feb

Year 2 - Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall Annexe at 10am on Monday 7th Feb

Year 3 - Quorn Village Hall at 10am on Friday 4th Feb

COST
The cost for the term is £80, payable by direct credit to the CBT account which is:

BANK:HSBC

SORT CODE: 40-30-24

ACCOUNT NO.: 04085450

ACCOUNT NAME: Bradgate Bridge Club

COVID
Just a reminder that the Covid restrictions which we had at the start of last term are still in force and we repeat them below.  The last is the most important:

• Tables will be more generously spaced than usual.  
• Players will handle the cards and bidding boxes as in a usual club session, but may bring their own bidding boxes if they wish.
• Players may wear masks if they wish.
• Players will not be asked for “vaccine passports” and should be aware that fellow-students and/or teachers may not be vaccinated.
• Bring your own drinks - we will not use the kitchen area in Hallam Fields (other classes to be advised)
• Players are asked not to come to the event if exhibiting signs of Covid infection.

We look forward to getting back together again after this brief hiccup.

Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth and Stuart - Charnwood Bridge Teachers

Well done to all of our pairs who played in the LCBA students' competition last night, and in particular to Annie King & Jenny Downes who finished 3rd N/S (only a hairs-breadth behind the N/S winners) and Olwen Jones & Di Rydings who finished 5th E/W. 

Also playing from CBT were:
Vickie McCloy & Judith Simpson, Sarah Braithwaite & Annette Love, Pamela Campbell-Armstrong & Janet Cross, Caroline Connor & Jeannie Griffiths, Kath Glock & Mair Mitchell, and Kenny Johnstone & David Burgess.

24 pairs from around the county entered, a far bigger field that this event normally sees, which goes to show that student bridge is flourishing in Leicestershire!  Thanks to all of you for giving CBT such a strong presence in the field.

Just a reminder of the times and dates for the summer refreshers.  These will all be held at The Rothley Centre starting at 10am. 

Year 1 will do supervised play of set hands covering themes from the year's lessons; Year 2&3 will combine and play a duplicate bridge session.

The Year 1 session will finish around 12.00 and the Years 2&3 combined session will finish at around 12.20. 

The dates are:

29 April, 13 May, 3, 10 and 24 June, 8 and 22 July, 5 and 19 Aug.

There's no need to pre-book, just turn up on the day.  You don't need a partner, as solo players will be paired up.  The cost is £3 per head to cover room hire for the two rooms – it helps if you arrive with the correct change .

Here's the booking form for Stratford weekend away - Thurs 18 April to Sun 21 April 2024. 

Please contact Ruth for further details and return the form to her: rufus.johnson@virginmedia.com

We hope you had a Happy Christmas and are looking forward to a bridge-filled New Year.

NEXT TERM - POSTPONED
Next term was due to start in mid-January, but we are afraid that the current government ‘Plan B’ restrictions, with the requirement for masks to be worn by all, make this unacceptable.   We have decided to delay the start of term until we can have a more acceptable learning environment.

We will keep an eye on the government announcements to check when this will be – our best guess is that it might mean waiting until April.  Those of you who have paid for next term, thank you and your payment will be held over until we can start.  Those who have not yet paid can hold off from paying for the present.

INTERIM MEASURES
In the meantime, we would not want you to lose your new-found skills.  We will be running, at 10.00 every Monday morning from 17 January, two parallel on-line duplicate sessions.  One of these, for the Year 1 students, will be run by Gail, Richard and Ruth. The other, for year 2 and 3 students, will be managed by Brian, Jim and Stuart. 

The sessions will be run on the RealBridge platform, which many of you have already used.  [For the Year 1 students, who will not have used this platform before – RealBridge puts the four players at a table with sound and video so they can see and talk to each other.  We will send a separate note to you about logging on.]

The sessions will simply provide you with a chance to put what you have learnt so far into practice, and will run for about two hours.  The teachers will only be directing the sessions to ensure that they run smoothly and keep to time – they will not be giving guidance on each hand.

These sessions are voluntary of course, and free of charge.  They are only open to those on our current student register, so you will be playing among friends 😊.  You can choose to drop into a session at the last minute – there’s no need to pre-book. 

If you want to play in any session but don’t have a partner, don’t worry, just log on and there will be a Bridge Buddy available to partner the last ‘singleton’ to register, to ensure that everyone is paired up.

It may be worthwhile all of you checking that your equipment operates with RealBridge – their test page is here:
https://play.realbridge.online/camera.html

We are as disappointed as you are that we have been forced to delay the lessons, but needs must ….

As ever, if you have any queries, please contact richard.rees227@gmail.com or any of the teachers.

With best wishes for the New Year,

Charnwood Bridge Teachers - Brian, Gail, Jim, Richard, Ruth and Stuart.

There is enough interest from our beginners and improvers classes to start the Friday Summer Club which we have mentioned. The club sessions would be at the Rothley Centre from 10.00 to 12.30 every Friday starting at the end of this term on 27th March.

There is no need for any prior commitment - we would accommodate as many pairs as turn up on the day.  There is no need to book in advance; you would pay table money (probably £2.50 per head - to be finalised) on the day to cover the costs of room hire etc.  We will pair up individuals as they arrive, but plan to arrange a stand-by Buddy so that we can cope if an odd number of players turn up.

These sessions will give you a chance to practice playing; they will not be lessons.  Each pair moves around the room playing hands against each of the other pairs who turn up; we plan to score these up so that you can see how you have got on compared to your peers. 

We will also invite beginners from the County Club classes in Leicester, which will give them and you a chance to meet other local students.

Brian, Gail, Richard and Ruth

Some of our current and ex-students, who play at Hoby Bridge Club, are arranging a bridge drive in conjunction with the EBU's Cancer Research fund-raiser.  Contact Sue Hendry (Year 3) or Kath Glock for further details.  

For more details on Hoby BC, where several of our students are regulars, see
 https://www.bridgewebs.com/hoby/home.html

Here's an extract from Ruth and Stuart's circular of 13 October about signing up for Monday's duplicate session:
THIS IS THE PROCEDURE TO FOLLOW:

ONE player from the partnership (you need to decide who!) must sign up for the game on BBO any time from 8am each Monday morning. BUT it is vital that the other player is also online with BBO when this is done, so please agree a time when you and your partner can do this eg 9.15am. We ask that you register your partnership before 9.40am, so we can iron out any problems before we start at 10am.

The person doing the registering for the partnership does as follows. (The other player merely stays on line with BBO). The person doing the registering MUST know their partner’s BBO username, so please make sure you have it, noting any capital letters etc.

         1.     Log in to BBO

         2.     Click on "COMPETITIVE " then "ALL TOURNAMENTS "

         3.     Top left – ensure “Pending“ is underlined.

         4.     Search bar (top right) - type in “Charnwood”.

         5.     To enter the session, click the white area containing “Charnwood Bridge                   Teachers Club."

         6.     Put in the BBO username of your partner, and click “invite”.

         7.     The other player will immediately receive this invitation, which is why                       he/she MUST be logged on to BBO - and accept the invite!!

You will be informed if you have been successfully entered into the tournament. If not, have another go, but check you have entered your partner’s username correctly. Once the partnership is registered, you can go away - have some breakfast, or walk the dog. However…….

Please do return and ensure you are BOTH logged in to BBO by 9.50am in time for the 10am start.  The game will start automatically at 10am - you must be there, or you will miss out!

 NO PARTNER or PARTNER AWAY? - NO PROBLEM!

 We will partner up single players into partnerships. If you are aware you will need a partner, please email or phone Ruth Johnson as soon as you can - days before if necessary - the earlier she knows, the better, and certainly no later than 6pm on the Sunday evening. She will fix you up with another single player or with another stand-in, so you can register with your “new” partner in time to play in the session. You will have to follow the procedure above to register.

Finally, please do get in touch if you have any questions - either Ruth or Stuart. Our emails are

 Ruth

rufus.johnson@virginmedia.com

07831492538

Stuart 

sm9999@hotmail.co.uk

We had 11 Tables for the opening session at Stratford on Thursday evening

ONLINE LESSONS START ON MONDAY 12th OCTOBER AT 10.00. 

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Congratulations to Janet McEwan & Lucy de Rienzo, and Tony Dunn & Janette Matthews, who came first and second respectively in the LCBA's Mercury Trophy competition for students. 

There were 27 student pairs entering - the full list of results is here:

https://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwoq/bw.cgi?pid=display_rank&event=20240603_1&club=leicestershire

EBU RESOURCES

If you log onto ‘MyEBU’ on the EBU website www.ebu.co.uk, you can access some useful resources.  To log in, you will need your EBU number – contact Richard if you get stuck – richard.rees227@gmail.com :
Then across on the top right hand side of the page is ‘Magazine’. 

We’ve set out some of the links to recent magazines that may be of interest to students; also, the monthly main EBU magazine has student-related material (the articles marked with a green headline).

“DISCOVERY” MAGAZINE

ISSUE 3 – JULY 2023

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/ebumagazine/2023-07.pdf

ISSUE 2 – JULY 2022

https://library.myebook.com/EBU/discovery-july-2022/4183/

ISSUE 1 – JULY 2021

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/ebumagazine/2021-07.pdf

“THE RUFFIAN” MAGAZINE – ARCHIVE MATERIAL

https://www.ebedcio.org.uk/node/278

Congratulations to Mair Mitchell and Judi Simpson, who were awarded Local Master and Area Master status respectively from the EBU in January. 

For details on masterpoints,  see: https://www.ebu.co.uk/gradings-rankings/master-point-ranks

These will start for Beginners on Friday 3 July and for Improvers on Monday 6 July - in both cases starting at 10.00 and running for an hour.

NEWS FROM LOCKDOWN!

We hope to be running on-line refreshers for the Beginners group at 10am on a Friday, and the Improvers at 10am on a Monday, starting in July.  Those interested should already have received an email. on 19th June.

These will be held on BBO, whose website is a www.bridgebase.com.  We will be using the 'Teaching Tables' function; members will need to join BBO (it's free) and the on-line sessions will be free at the start while we see how they go.

With very best wishes,

Brian, Gail, Richard, Ruth and Stuart

This website is based on a standard bridge club website, so the students are called 'Members'.

Where you have given permission for your email or mobile number to be accessible to other members (for example to fix up a practice session between lessons), these details are accessible on the 'Members Area' (one of the options on the list on the left).

Every member can see the Members Area - the first time you go into it, you'll need to set your own personal password to log in.  This stops the contact information being available to Joe Public.

If I have contact details wrong, please let me know as only I can change these.

As well as students, the 'Members' include the 5 teachers (Brian, Gail, Ruth, and myself) and 7 Bridge Buddies (Helen, Jill, Lesley, Penny, Sarah, Stuart, Susie) who will help with the course.

9 October 2019   Richard Rees