Stratford St Mary AGM March 27, 2024

Chairman’s Report

• First of all, I’d like to thank our Committee members for the work they have done in the past year. Elizabeth and Sheila come in early nearly every week to set up the tables, Christine and Nick direct and score regularly and Derek, who joined the committee very recently, has already been a source of new ideas including adoption of the Bridgemate App which some of you are using already.
• Thanks to them all and also to you all for coming along to make this club an enjoyable place to play bridge.
• We’ve had a very satisfactory year regularly attracting players from Dovercourt, Mersea and elsewhere as well as those who live closer to Colchester.
• On average our attendance has been between 8 and 9 tables – a shade below the pre-covid levels that are necessary for the club to break even financially but good enough for us to maintain our table money and annual subs unchanged for another year. Maybe an increase next year will be necessary.
• Looking to the future, we have two members, Derek and Marlene, who will be taking the Club Director’s training course this Spring and I’m looking forward to having them available to share the directing. Marlene, of course, has already directed here a few times.
• It is obvious that to maintain our attendance numbers we need to have a source of new players. We are lucky to have two local teaching groups – Nick Reay’s in West Mersea and Emma Fowler’s at the Colchester Bridge School in Boxted – and we are working with the latter to set up a supervised play session, in conjunction with the Langham bridge club, to provide somewhere for students to gain experience before they are ready to play in a club. We’ll let you know how that idea progresses.
• For most of us, this Club is an opportunity to play bridge for three hours on a Wednesday evening – but it is more than that. As one of the Suffolk County Bridge Association’s 15 clubs, we host the annual Club Teams of Eight event which last November attracted entries from eight clubs – that’s 16 tables – and our members are entitled to play in County-run events and enjoy the slightly more competitive games they offer.
• Which gives me the opportunity to congratulate Debbie & Martin and Rita & Derek who represented this club last Sunday in the Club Teams of Four event and finished an excellent third out of 23 teams. Well done to them.
• If you haven’t played in any County events, why not give them a try? – they are always enjoyable, well-run events.

Paul Rickard