A married couple were travelling home after a particularly bad evening’s bridge. They passed a field of donkeys. “Relatives of yours?” said one to the other. “No, in-laws”, the other replied.

The legendary Alfred Sheinwold once said, if you can’t defend accurately, aim to be declarer or dummy.

As a mathematician, I like the one about the three types of bridge player – those who can count, and those who can’t.

But on to serious business. As Terry said yesterday afternoon, trying to quieten players at the start of the session, we can’t have people enjoying themselves too much.

It is my privilege, as well as my responsibility, to present this Chair’s report to you today. Clearly the major feature in the year since the last AGM has been the need to find new premises. In early January we received formal notice that our lease of the rooms at the Showground would not be renewed when the lease lapses at the end of June, 2024. Polite enquiries confirmed that a new lease could not be negotiated, nor would the Showground consider leasing other rooms.

Your Committee set about the task of seeking new premises with vigour. An open meeting was held to brief members on the situation. We established a War Cabinet which included key members alongside the Committee itself: David Drinkwater, Ann Sleightholme, Robin Adey, John Whiteman. We drew up a list of criteria; numerous possible venues were visited and/or assessed. After an intensive search, the Haling Dene Centre in Penkridge emerged as the only fully viable option, its one drawback being its location.

In advance of the crucial Committee meeting at which a formal decision would be made, Club members were invited to express their reactions to possibly moving to Haling Dene In the end, the Committee voted unanimously to lease premises at Haling Dene, together with hiring Tixall Village Hall for Thursday and Friday morning lessons. We were painfully aware that this decision would not please a number of loyal and long-standing members, and we deeply regret this.

The Club has already begun its sole-user lease of Room 8 at Haling Dene. This will be our office base, with potential for some storage too. The lease of the bridge room, Room 11, commences on June 1st. This will cater for our regular duplicate sessions on Monday afternoons and Tuesday and Friday evenings. People at the Centre have been most helpful in assisting our move there. We have also exchanged cordial messages with Penkridge Bridge Club, who meet there on Monday mornings.

To cater for members who might be put off by the travel to and from Penkridge, we plan to hold duplicate sessions at Tixall twice a month in the morning, on the first Thursday and third Friday of each month. There will also be four Tuesday evenings a year following a Bank Holiday, when Haling Dene will not be available, and those duplicate sessions will transfer to Tixall too. While many might prefer the location, Tixall would have been quite inadequate to sustain all our needs and activities.

Looking back over the year as a whole, the Club has continued to seek to rebuild after the covid shut-down. Some sessions have been quite healthy in terms of numbers and atmosphere, but others have been much weaker. Two and a half tables is surely the worst scenario, and three and a half is only a little better. We need more members playing more bridge more often! This theme will become even more relevant when we make the transition to our new premises.

The Club has successfully held a number of significant events over the past year. The Shelley Competition proved to be something of a marathon effort, with one round having to be rescheduled because of bad weather, and most teams needing substitutes repeatedly. However, seven teams went the whole way, and last month the Competition reached a triumphant conclusion, thanks to David and Terry, with one team emerging as the surprise winners at the very last hurdle. Congrats to them!

Your Committee agreed that many other competitions would not have enough entries to make them worthwhile and viable. However, an unusually large number of members have achieved the threshold for the 65 competition this year. We hosted an enjoyable match with Stone Bridge Club (and we should note that we received a very supportive message from them when our lease termination became known.) A very commendable £721 was raised in the simultaneous pairs event for Children in Need. The Club also hosted the County Pairs Championship nearly a year ago now, and will be repeating this on Thursday. (In passing, it has been noted that the large Council Room at Haling Dene would be an excellent venue for County and other high-profile events.)

Although still enjoyed by many members, the American Suppers on Autumn and Winter Saturday evenings had mixed success, some going very well, and some having to be cancelled for lack of known numbers. We do thank David and Janet particularly for trying hard to keep the flag flying here. Among other social events, we recall the celebratory pre-Coronation parties and the seasonal festivities at Christmas. More generally, we have all enjoyed the availability of a regular and varied supply of biscuits, thanks I believe to Pat Martin.

It has been good to note the animated conversation at many duplicate sessions during the year. The Club should certainly foster a congenial atmosphere as the context for its bridge sessions. On the other hand, we need to tread a careful line between being too casual and being too formal. We are perhaps becoming overly casual on occasion. Members are therefore reminded that they should (a) always respect the director, (b) cut out all unseemly noise and disturbance, and (c) avoid inconsiderately slow play. (In addressing all members on this topic, I do include myself, of course!)

Our Treasurer will present the annual accounts shortly, but I will make two comments in advance of this. As you know, at a General Meeting last May, a motion was passed to raise the table money and the annual membership fees. These increases are now feeding into our finances. Our funds have recently been boosted by £5,000 from the Showground, in compensation for the equipment etc we will be leaving behind. I would thank David particularly for his help in negotiating this transaction.

This has been quite a traumatic year for the Club, so we are even more grateful this year to all the colleagues who have served as officers or committee members. Club Captain Terry has overseen very capably all our bridge-playing sessions, ensuring that everything is in immaculate order, notwithstanding further trouble with the duplimating machines and a very personal bereavement. Sincere respect and thanks to you, Terry. Carol has been a tower of strength and reliability as Secretary, not least in keeping your Chair on the straight and narrow.

Carol had originally thought of retiring a year ago, but kindly offered to stay on. In the light of the disruption we are facing through the change of venue, she has valiantly offered to continue for a further year still, after which she will definitely retire! Our warmest thanks to you too, Carol. May I add that it is my intention also to retire after this next year, at the end of which I will be approaching my 88th birthday.

Steve our Treasurer is stepping down this year, and we thank him heartily for his conscientious stewardship of our finances over the past year and previously. While arrangements are in hand for appointing his successor, the prospective person is not yet in a position to make a public commitment to this role. However, we do not anticipate any hiatus in our routine financial activities. Other Committee members have played their part fully too – Clive as our House Manager, Janet as Social Events coordinator, Ken and Sean. All are standing again, except Ken, and we thank them gladly for their service to the Club. In addition we should express our gratitude to Ann for her noble work keeping our website up-to-date and alive, and for her acting as shepherd or sheepdog to the faithful flock of Friday-nighters, and to Robin for has assistance with the Thursday teaching sessions.

We were uncertain how many members would renew their membership this time round. In the event, a week ago 75 had renewed, plus our two life members. 8 had notified us that they would not be renewing, leaving 10 whose intentions were not yet known. Some of the ten have since said they would not be renewing. There would seem to have been other factors involved, separately from our anticipated transfer to Penkridge, for many who are not renewing.

Inevitably during a year there are comings and goings among the membership. We were particularly sorry recently to mark the passing of Harry Jones, who had brought much courtesy and good humour with him during his time in the Club. In addition, we understand sadly that life member and former President Ivor will not be playing any more bridge with us after the Club has left the Showground. We wish him well, and thank him heartily for all he has contributed to the Club over many years.

We are fast approaching the end of an era, an era spanning nearly 50 years during which the Showground has been our Club home. Our present rooms have served us well, and we will take with us many happy and meaningful memories. After this meeting, I would invite you all to join me in a glass of Prosecco to raise a toast to the Club, to celebrate the half century of our presence here, and quietly, if we wish, to grieve our departure.

Alongside the work of creating a new base at Haling Dene, we will be emptying these rooms. One major issue relates to the Honours Boards. A photographic record of them has already been lodged in our archives. We cannot envisage any time in the future when we will be able to display them again. Moreover, they have not been properly updated since covid, and we have been unable to find any person or company that could do the work. Rather than their filling up storage space pointlessly and indefinitely, we will regretfully be disposing of them. (The Meeting subsequently accepted Robin’s offer to store the boards in his capacious attic.)

Much else will also have to be disposed of, either as rubbish or as donations to a charitable cause. The Haling Dene Centre has expressed interest in acquiring our 40 quite new blue chairs, for instance. Pat Martin has very kindly offered storage space for items we wish to retain and possibly use later (and her son and friends are offering much appreciated assistance with the physical task of moving items around.)

Onward and upward, then – or at least onward and outward into the new world awaiting us.

Long live Stafford Bridge Club!