GCBA and EBU

EBU offer attractive playing opportunities for individuals and affiliated club members.

Be part of this community, whose experience and ideas can help enhance your bridge experience.

Members will receive four+ magazines through the year, offering news and stories and lessons on the game they love to play.

Members can track their progress through Master Points and the National Grading Scheme and compete in county and national events.

Administratively, the EBU can help ensure affiliated clubs are constituted on a sound basis and offers a very attractive insurance deal for affiliated clubs.

GCBA and the EBU offer courses (often subsidised) to help people move into becoming teachers and teachers helpers

Benefits for affiliated Clubs can be found at this link
Benefits for individual affiliated members can be found at this link
 

The Gloucestershire County Bridge Association:

was first formed in the 1930s to promote and support bridge in the county. 

It is one of the "constituent members" of the English Bridge Union, and as such is one of its shareholders and is a limited company and represents the interests of Gloucestershire clubs and within the EBU.

GCBA’s mission is the promotion of bridge and support of bridge players. Your individual members can receive training in both playing and teaching. You can help to shape the demand for such training.

County Support for Teaching

The county will arrange for sessions to be set up in appropriate localities to give existing players a flavour of how to go about organising bridge classes, and follow that up with providing access to EBED's structure Teacher Training programme. GCBA will also pay the first year of English Bridge Teachers Association membership (giving access to a wide variety of teaching materials) for bridge teachers in the county. 

GCBA also helps organised training for Tournament Directors.

We also support teaching and play programmes for young players, both face to face & online. We are also organising a number of School bridge tuition and play sessions. See our Youth Bridge website for details.

GCBA assists bridge clubs in Gloucestershire with the running of games, and it will organise a variety of games itself.  These aim not to compete with club games, but to complement them and enhance the range of games accessible to players of all standards. County-organised games currently available:

A set of games on Monday evenings which allows the better players in the county to come together for a high standard game of Duplicate Bridge (most clubs lack the critical mass for this).

A set of County Championship events (the County Pairs, the County Knock-Out, inter-club team-of-8) which also act as qualifying heats for corresponding EBU competitions (the Corwen, the Pachabo and the Garden Cities)

A small number (the Cotswold Cup, the Everett Cup) of competitions open to all members of the county and giving them the chance to see and play against each other. 

A small number (the Rank Xerox and the Bredon Vale) of inter-club competitions where club representatives can compete on behalf of their club. 

A small number of restricted events which aim to allow players of less experience to see and play against similar players from other clubs (the Ace of Clubs which is on hold, and the 9-High Swiss Pairs).

GCBA has formed a Representative Events Committee (REC) which selects players to represent the County in various contexts including the following:  

The Midlands Counties League, in which eight counties compete during every September-April.

The EBU's Tollemache Cup, which is the national inter-county team-of-8 championship.

GCBA is managed by a committee elected at its Annual General Meeting: 

usually held around June each year. The committee has agreed on the following statements to explain what the GCBA does, what it wants to achieve, and how it wants to achieve this.

MISSION STATEMENT : 

to represent, and provide support to, all bridge clubs in the county, and to supply whatever bridge services that these clubs cannot provide to players or potential players in the county.

VISION STATEMENT : anyone who is or might be interested in the game of bridge in Gloucestershire has access to a plentiful supply of learning and playing opportunities.

VALUES STATEMENT : we will achieve our vision working in a collaborative way with all clubs and players in the county, and with neighbouring counties, based on the principles of inclusivity, transparency and mutual respect.

To learn more about GCBA feel free to ask any of its committee members. To contact them Click here
 

The English Bridge Union is the National Authority for duplicate bridge in England. 

EBU was formed by the County Associations which existed in the 1930s and the County Associations today are the shareholders in the company EBU Limited.

The EBU covers the functions described above, but at the national level. It also organises national teams for international competitions and represents English Bridge players to the European Bridge League and the World Bridge Federation.

EBU will:

organise a variety of National Championships - for pairs, teams, clubs and counties across the country.

organise the teams which represent England in the Home Internationals and the European and World Championships - in the open, mixed, women and senior categories, as well as in four categories of Junior Bridge.

support clubs and other bridge organisers by supplying appropriate Regulations in accordance with the Laws of Bridge, and providing advice on any aspect of tournament organisation.

help players track their bridge performance through the National Grading Scheme and the Master Points scheme.

provide for all members a magazine five times a year with bridge news, and give all new members a welcome pack explaining the EBU and its role.

manage Disciplinary Processes in order to maintain honest and friendly Duplicate Bridge in this country.

For more details see the EBU website