From Friday 8th November, Friday evening sessions will take place at Holmcroft Youth and Community centre, Newland Avenue ST16 1NL

To find the Centre, turn eastwards into North Avenue at the traffic lights at the A34 (Stone Road) junction with North Avenue and Holmcroft Road. Take the first left into Newland Avenue. The entrance to the Centre is on the right. (Do NOT confuse this Centre with the Stafford North End Community Centre in Holmcroft Road!!) The reason for this change is to spare members from having to use unlit country lanes during the upcoming season of long dark evenings, mists and frost, and hopefully thereby to encourage and enable a bigger regular attendance on Friday evenings.

Michael Metcalf
Chair  

Players are welcome to come on a Friday Evening without a partner but it would be very helpful if you could let Ann know beforehand so she can attempt to have a partner for everyone when the session starts.  Click here to have your say if the Holmcroft YCC venue will suit you

A good news/bad news day.  Bad news, one team was unable to play on the night, good news the other four teams had no problem with the tablets so the raw results before handicaps can be seen here and after handicaps applied here,    Terry had gone overboard to ensure an easy movement by dealing 4 sets of the cards so no dependence on speed of others slowing things down, the 24 boards completed by 10 p.m. Including handicaps first Janet's team raw +79, handicap -26, total +53, second Carol's team, -29, +20, total -9, third Ann's team -58, +37, total -21 and fourth the Metcalf team +8, -31, total -23, .Thanks to David for directing, everything ran very smoothly, everyone enjoyed the evening.

Hopefully a fifth team with be able to join in the next round, 21st November, t eam captains please be sure Terry knows which, if any, reserves playing in good  time for him to work out the revised handicaps. Please be sure that David has your email address if you are down as a team member or a reserve as David would like to be able to pass relevant information direct to all taking part.

Lessons are now at Tixall village Hall, ST18 0XT at 9:45 for 10 a.m.

Lessons:

• Robin's intermediate lessons: Thursday morning lessons.  On 1^st Thursday of the month this will will normally be played as a duplicate session.
• Terry's Improvers lessons: Friday morning lessons. On 3^rd Friday of the month this will will normally be played as a duplicate session.

Robin has produced plenty of material for the website, including one on Splinter bids, Gambling 3NT, CRO, Redoubles, Trial Bids, Jacoby and his all time most read page on McKenny signals and Discards. Summary of his lessons can be seen here with links to the individual lessons.

Robin's Thursday morning popular lessons for intermediates start at 10 a.m. (please contact Robin if you would like to attend) as do Terry's Friday morning lessons for improvers (please contact Terry if you would like to attend those). Please contact Ann if you would like to join beginner's lessons.

The EBU is introducing a new service for members, by which members will receive an email after each game submitted to the EBU within 3 days of play provided the EBU has a current email address for them. This email will include both their results and information on master points awarded, NGS impact, and other statistics such as how many times they have played and how their performance compares with others at the same club. It is a fun and friendly email and the EBU congratulate all players regardless of how well they score. Stafford Bridge Club has opted in to this new system; members can individually opt out via "Account" button on myEBU page.