| Annie Curtis RIP |
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Annie Curtis, who died peacefully in hospital on the morning of Friday 13th January, after a long illness.
After moving to Manchester, Annie first received bridge lessons by her son and daughter and then learned to play bridge at MBC over 10 years ago. She enjoyed the game hugely and made many friends playing at Manchester Bridge Club and in the Manchester League as part of "3 Reds and a Rebel" team - a reference to the 3 Manchester United fans and one ‘rebel’ who made up the team.
She frequently supported intermediate events throughout Manchester and was the joint winner of one of the first the intermediate Swiss Pairs run by the county at Manchester Bridge Club.
Away from the table Annie was always encouraging others to come along to lessons, seminars, competitions and she supported bridge throughout the area. More latterly and until 2021, she worked diligently to improve and update the Manchester Bridge Club homepage on the Club website – for which the Committee and David and Jeff in particular will always be grateful.
Long standing MBC member, Ollie Burgess fondly remembers Annie hosting him and feeding him at her home in return for a great meal and her key role in ensuring his monthly Sunday seminars at MBC were well advertised on the website and well attended – and therefore a great success!! She also attended herself, helped with catering and organisation and reminded Ollie afterwards to distribute the seminar material and hand records!!
RIP Annie - you will be missed by everyone at the Club.
Annie is survived by her son, daughter and 5 grandchildren to whom she was devoted.
We will post details of the funeral as and when we receive them...
*** We have been informed that Annie had two young pet cats that now need a home. If you are interested in providing a home for Annie's cats or know anyone that may be interested, please let us know and we'll pass on the details to Annie's family***
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| CHRISTMAS CHARITY CHEER |
For all those who bought Christmas puddings and Chocolate Oranges from Ann Wood you will be pleased to know that £215 was raised for St Ann's Hospice.
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| Bernard Goldenfield Trophy at Manchester Congress Teams Championship |
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Manchester Bridge Club team wins the Bernard Goldenfield Trophy
at the Manchester Congress Green Point Teams event
TMBC members Andrew Woodcock, Catherine Draper, Paul Murray & David Debbage led throughout to win the Teams event by almost 7 VPs with a round to spare on Sunday.
Whilst David, Andrew and Catherine have won at the Congress many times, this was Paul’s first win in his home county – and he’s still buzzing! Congratulations!! TMBC members also in Teams competition who showed well were - Peter Grauer (2nd), John Hassett & Jeff Morris (9th), Irene Davies & Karen Reissmann (10th).
In the Championship Pairs on Saturday, 38 pairs competed. TMBC members Irene Davies & Alan Mould finished 2nd, Andrew Woodcock & David Debbage (4th), David Sarabowski & Tom Dessain (6th), Paul Hackett & Paul Murray (9th) and Justin Hackett & Martin Taylor (11th). David & Andrew were the top Men’s Pair.
It’s nice to see Manchester Bridge Club members performing well and winning in top County Bridge events. Well done to all!
Why not come along to Paul’s supervised sessions on Monday & Wednesday afternoon at 1pm. Each session includes a short lesson followed by a supervised duplicate of around 15 boards.
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| Membership Promotions |
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We are delighted to announce that the following Members of the Club achieved a promotion in December
Mark Bradbury Club Master
Vera Lowson Master
Gilbert Lee Area Master
Congratulations to all of you
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| Swiss Pairs on IntoBridge |
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Click here to sign on to IntoBridge
Thursday evening online Swiss Pairs on Intobridge at 7:15pm
9 tables for popular online MBC game on Dec 8th with 15 players playing on IntoBridge for the first time!
Come and join us every week!
Click on the links below to register your account on IntoBridge and come and join us to play on this new innovative online platform that offers much more than than BBO.
If you haven't already, Click here to Register on the IntoBridge platform
The following youtube videos explain:
The IntoBridge platform, how to register and available controls
How to register for an IntoBridge game, how to join a game, and how to use the partnership desk
Registration is straightforward, but does involve receiving an email with a confirmation link to activate your account.
If you have any problems please contact Dave Fernley on 07388 398 919
Once you have registered you can invite your partner using his/her user name or join the Partnership Desk to signify you are looking for a partner.
An IntoBridge host will play with you cannot find one via the Partnership Desk
For the time being, there are no robots on IntoBridge.
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| TMBC Success at Bedfordshire & Great Northern Swiss Pairs |
Our Chairman, Paul Murray and fellow TMBC member, Andrew Woodcock enjoyed a convincing win in the Bedfordshire Green Point Swiss Pairs event recently.A huge field of 82 pairs entered the competition, which was played on the RealBridge platform and also coincided with Paul's birthday! Well done Paul and Andrew!
Why not come along to Paul’s supervised duplicate sessions for Beginners and Improvers on Monday at 1pm and Tuesday evening at 7pm and Wednesday morning at 10.30am? A short lesson and discussion on a key bridge topic is followed by supervised play at the table.
Meanwhile, TMBC members figured prominently at the recent Great Northern Swiss Pairs, which was held on 1st-2nd October at Leeds. All TMBC participants finished in the top half of the 37 pair field.
Congratulations to Michael Byrne and Alec Smalley who won in a very tight finish. Rodney Lighton and Tom Dessain were 3rd, Justin Hackett & Martin Taylor 5th, Rhona Goldenfield & Tracy Sherman 7th and Jackie Pye & John Holland 8th. Jeff Morris & David Sarabowski finished joint 16th.
Michael becomes the first person to have won the event with four different partners - Alex Morris, Andrew Woodcock and Kieran Dyke. John Holland has also won the event four times previously with three different partners.
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| Beginner's Course |
OUR NEXT BEGINNER'S BRIDGE COURSE WILL START ON WEDNESDAY 1ST MARCH 2023 at 10.30am
This course lasts for 12 weeks and covers the basics of play and bidding. We teach the 5 card major, strong No Trump and short club system. We will cover basic defensive tactics and also demonstrate how to play bridge online mainly using Bridgebase Online and No Fear Bridge.
The most important thing though is that the classes will be friendly and sociable. Bridge can be a complicated game and will stretch your mind, but we aim to make bridge fun to learn and hope you will quickly come to love the game as much as we do.
The course will cost £72 payable in advance
Tutors are Susan Triggs and Anne Naylor
Interested? Find out more by emailing Susan on grasan30@gmail.com
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| Online Account for Online Games |
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Please be aware that the BridgeWebs attendance Module is not a real time system. It reflects entry fees spent on online and face-to-face games but does not reflect money paid into your online account until it is manually updated from the Club's bank statement. Our 'WebMaster', Dave Fernley performs these updates periodically- usually weekly. If you need to know your balance between updates, call Paul or Dave.
The new Bridgewebs Attendance Module for tracking payment money for online games is now live.
It provides you with a real-time view of the games you have played, the current balance of your account and payments made and received by your account.
To see this information you will need to log on to the Members Only area of the website and then select thePayments Account tab.
Detailed instructions logging onto this area are available here
A detailed description of the Online Account, how it works, etc, is also available here within the Members Only Area (log-on needed).
Account statements will also be sent out periodically by email. This ensures that people who choose not to actively monitor their account balance are still aware of it. The statement provides a regular update to non-members who play in our online games who do not have access the member's area and therefore the real time benefits of this system.
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| Afternoon Improvers |
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MONDAY AFTERNOON LEARNERS & IMPROVERS GET TOGETHER
EVERY WEEK AT 1PM WITH PAUL MURRAY AT THE CLUB
EVERYONE IS WELCOME.
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| WEEKLY SCHEDULE |
 See Calendar on the right of this home page for our Weekly Schedule
Face to Face table fees for Duplicates at the Club are £4 for fully paid-up MBC members & £6 for Guests
(includes free tea/coffee & biscuits and occasional treats! However, sandwiches/supper will not be served)
Online bridge entry is £3.75 for members & £4.50 for non-members
For Online games a pre-arranged partner is preferable. However, if possible, partners can be found after you log on to our tournaments. Just wait on Partnership Desk on IntoBridge.
Please transfer entry fee (or more for convenience / multiple games) into the MBC bank account (see below).
MBC will reduce your balance after each session played and text/email/call you when your ‘pot’ reduces to approx £12 so you have time to top it up and stay in credit.
The Manchester Bridge Club Bank details are –
HSBC Sort Code 40-11-56 Account Number 90730807
Please put your Firstname and Surname as the payment reference
Thank you for supporting The Manchester Bridge Club
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| Thursday Swiss Pairs |
"HOP ALONG" TO OUR THURSDAY NIGHTS
It's a popular 18 board event, 6 x 3 boards on IntoBridge in the usual fun format. We start at 7.15pm so we should be finished by 9.30pm.
It's been organised so that those of you who are working during the day have an evening session to join in with so please, everyone, continue to support this.
See you on Thursday nights at 7.10pm for a 7.15pm start!!
Our IntoBridge Swiss pairs is a true Swiss movement and guaranteed to be a friendly and competitive evening!
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Would you like to learn to play bridge?
We are currently setting up our new courses for beginners. We will be running a course of 12 lessons starting Spring 2023 starting each week at 1.30pm
If you are interested in joining this course or would like to learn at different time or day, please fill in the form below and we'll get in touch to make arrangements for you to start lessons to learn to play this fascinating game.
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