County Show

This year .Bridge is on for Monday 30^th May while the show is setting up,

however No bridge

• Tuesday 31^st  May evening session,
• Wednesday 1^st June afternoon session
• Thursday 2^nd June 10 a.m. morning lesson
• Friday 3^rd June 10 a.m. morning lesson
• Friday 3^rd June 4:30 p.m. afternoon lesson

Jubilee Bank Holiday Friday 3rd June - party session?

Please tell Ann (Stafford 822233) if you wish to play on the bank holiday.(at least 12 needed to say yes for the Friday evening session to go ahead). As of 24/5/22 touch and go for numbers.

Motor Caravan Rally: June, 8^th - 14^th   

No Bridge

• Thursday 9^th June 10 a.m. morning lesson
• Friday 10^th June 10 a.m. morning lesson
• Friday 10^th June 4:30 p.m. afternoon lesson
• Friday 10^th June 7:15 p.m. evening session
• Monday 13th June 1:30 p.m. afternoon session

the caravan rally organisers are reluctant to allow any SBC vehicles into the showground on the Thursday 9th and Friday 10th and the caravans/motor homes will be on the move on the 13th..  Watch this space to check if anything changes

By kind Invitation when no access to the Stafford Club

Stone Bridge Club invites members of our club to join their duplicate sessions when our premises are unavailable, at their members rate of £3 per session. Click this link to see their session days and times which are different from Stafford session times.  As with Stafford.you need to arrive in good time, good to aim for 15 minutes ahead of the session start time.

Mixed Pairs, Thursday 9^th June

An event for full members of Staffordshire & Shropshire C.B.A, (Click here for the entry form).   Entries to be in by June 3rd. Prizes will be dependent on the number of tables.

SSCBA virtual BBO county on line group at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays 

If you would like to be a member of this “Club” please email the Membership Secretary –  John Withers on jwithersx@gmail.com, with your real name, your BBO user name (exactly as you print it), EBU number (if you have one), contact telephone number and email address.  (This has to be done also by those players already registered with BBO.)  Only those that have registered with John will be able to take part in the SSCBA Virtual Club Events, please give him a day or two to organise this prior to the event you wish to join and get some practice games on BBO.   Click for information on BBO See also how to indicate your basic system to your oppo through the chat manager, Using Chat Manager in BBO - Bing video. Please also take time to read Paul's comments on Announcing and Alerting on BBO.

In his Chair's Report, Michael Metcalf commented on the ways in which the covid pandemic had affected the Club. It was not the same Club as it had been before lockdown. Membership had fallen from above 130 to around 90. Since the return to face-to-face bridge, some sessions were struggling to sustain adequate numbers. Currently, the Friday evenings and the Thursday morning teaching sessions were the most buoyant. He thanked the outgoing Committee for their support and hard work in what had been a very challenging time for everyone. Terry Maltby, Club Captain, and Carol Kane, Secretary were thanked for keeping the Club very much alive as an active bridge-playing organisation during lockdown. Steve Lister, Treasurer, was thanked both for his stewardship of our finances, including successful applications for covid-related grants, and also (with Carol) for enabling members to be invoiced by email retrospectively each month and to pay online. Special thanks were conveyed to John Whiteman, House Manager for all the work he had put in during lockdown to oversee the refurbishing of the kitchen, the installing of a ventilation system, and the replacement of overhead lighting, chairs and table covers. Several other members were thanked individually too.

Accounts for the year were presented and accepted; notwithstanding the expenditure on refurbishing, the Club still had ample reserves.

The following persons were elected unopposed for 2022-23: Chair: Michael Metcalf Club Captain and Vice-Chair: Terry Maltby Secretary: Carol Kane Treasurer: Steve Lister Committee Members: Sean Clarke, Janet Drinkwater, John Whiteman.  David Drinkwater would be happy to serve as senior tournament director.

Under any other business, much discussion took place about how to manage small numbers at a session. Some members argued strongly that a three-table session should be run as a teams-of-four event, but others did not wish to see this become a rigid rule. There was much enthusiasm for ensuring that the Shelley competition was re-instated in the Autumn.

After the AGM, some welcome refreshments were provided by David and Janet. This was followed by the regular Tuesday duplicate session, with four tables in play.

Robin's Thursday morning popular lessons for intermediates are going strong and now the Friday morning lessons for improvers have also restarted (19/11/21). The Thursday lessons often take the form of playing hands from a recent club session such that a minimum of 12 pupils is needed for the lesson to be viable. Please contact Robin if you would like to attend so that he can organise an exact number of tables.  Hand show is from Robin's most popular lesson notes, an example of a strong hand that can reverse, hand 2 of the lesson.

Have you a hand to send to Robin for his new new "Agony Uncle" page!  

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 latest lessons along with some of Steve and Jan's pictures can be seen here with links to the individual lessons.

Beginner's Lessons.

Some interest has been shown in starting a beginner's course.  Please contact Ann (01785 822233) if you would like to join the group,  Fridays at 4:30 p.m.