Hemel Hempstead Bridge Club

Chairman’s AGM Report 2012-13

During the past year we have continued to run Duplicate Bridge nights on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (including Bank Holiday Mondays).  All evenings use duplimated boards and I would again like to thank David Blasebalk for running the Duplimate machine.

The club’s membership is slightly down on last year and the average number of tables per week was down by about half a table. We purchase new sets of cards in February in readiness for the Club’s Swiss pairs. We will be running this event again in Februay 2014. We also purchased new sets of bidding box cards. We went for the higher quality ones and I’m sure they will eventually reduce their slippery effect !

The Christmas party had the same turn out as the previous year.  Susie organised the food with herself, the committee members and Pat Henry bringing specific items. Many thanks to all those who contributed. Again we managed to hold the ticket price at £9; I think that’s pretty good value for food and wine plus the hire of the hall.

This coming year we will not be running a heat of the Herts Humble cup due to poor turnouts in recent years. We will be running the Herts pairs qualifier on the first Monday in September 2013. This evening will be a normal Monday night pairs, counting toward the Ladder, but the top 50% will be eligible for the Herts pairs semi-final. Incidently, from now onwards all sim. pairs events count toward the Ladder.

We will be ammending the rules of both the Janet Fitzgerald Trophy and the Hudson Salver to avoid any ambiguity in close situations

I have to report the sad loss of Anne & John Hart who both passed away last year within 6 months of each other. Both had been regular players on a Tuesday night and will be sadly missed.

Finally a big thank you to all those who have served on the Committee;  Cliff Short,  Paula Morton, Lesley Peers,  Susie Bond, David Blasebalk, Tim Cooper, Martyn McDonald and  Pat Jacobs.

I would also like to thank  Derek Gowlett for organising  Tuesday’s bridge;  all our Directors;  Roger Edmonds for the web site;  Anne Short as our membership secretary;  Margaret Goodwin for acquiring our provisions and Cynthia Wheatley for bringing the milk each week. Margaret has had to relinquish her responsibility and we thank her for her fine work over the past  couple of years.

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David Stimson