Chairman's Report

Thanks everyone for coming.  It’s been an excellent year for the Club where we now have fully established both weekly Monday Pairs, monthly Monday Teams and weekly Thursday online Pairs.  Hopefully that provides something for everyone.  We are averaging between 22 and 24 full tables of players every week which is significantly higher than before COVID and have, to date peaked at 15 full tables on a Monday and 12 on a Thursday which is excellent.  The Duty Officer system, excellently administered by Tony Hazell, really helps these numbers.

I’d like to thank the many, many people who help make this possible.

The Committee of Martin Sidders, Gary Kendall, Jane Scaysbrook, John Duthie and Gill Lambert

The TD’s: John Stobo, James Rogers, Mike Hann, Gary Conrad and Gary Kendall

The Scorers: John Duthie, Rod Adams, Mike Parikh and Mike Hann

Those who help regularly in other ways such as Tony Hazell (Duty Officers), Jim Fry (Catering), Peter Hill, Lynn Prentice and John Roberts for their consistent help on Mondays.  Please forgive me if I’ve forgotten anyone as the support is very much appreciated.

Since our last AGM we have unfortunately also lost a few of our Members and I’d just like to take a moment to remember Eric Bonney and Dennis Spruce who both played with us on Thursdays.

Overall, I think the Club is in a good position. You’ll see from the Accounts that we are financially stable; Membership is growing and hopefully we are about to have another willing helper elected to the Committee.  Jersey Farm is now the location for HBA Face-to-Face events which confirms we have one of the better venues in the county and, I believe the atmosphere within, and friendliness of, the club compares well with most.  This is the key thing that we all need to remember going forward.  It’s far better to be known as the friendliest bridge club in the area rather than the most competitive so be supportive of the difficult job Director’s do, be friendly to Opponents, be courteous to Partner and we’ll hopefully have even more success in the coming year.

Steve Lambert

Chairman