Thanet Bridge Club
Minutes of the 43rd
 Annual General Meeting 
Held on Friday 11 April 2025
 
________________________________________
Present:
Committee
Joyce Saker, Life President                               JS
Ken Walker, Chairman                                      KW
Paul Gibbons, Vice Chairman                           PG
Nigel Thomas, Secretary                                  NTT
Jacky Hollands, Membership Secretary            JH
Barbara Platt, Treasurer                                    BP
Janet Twyman                                                   JT
Sean Moruzzi, Competition Secretary              SM

Members

Maureen Tatham, Jackie Bowler, Shelagh Norvill, Malcolm Dale, Pat & Ron Dubbins, Rosemary English, Pat Ayling, Suzanne Grant, Mary Newman, Terry Towers, Barry Tooke

Apologies:    Janet Kesterton, Tracey Perry, Heather Hunt,  Christine Thomas and others
________________________________________
 

    
1.    Welcome

Ken welcomed everyone to the 43rd Annual General Meeting of Thanet Bridge Club. He said our President for Life, Joyce Saker, who founded the club with her husband Brian, is here to introduce the meeting.    
2.    Presidents Address

Joyce thanked everyone for coming. The club was started over 50 years ago at the Royal Temple Yacht Club, and she didn’t expect it to be still going. The club is very friendly and she said it was lovely to see so many people here.    
3.    Chairmans Report

Ken said that as everyone knew, he had been missing for some time, due to illness, but he would like to thank the rest of the Committee who in his absence have carried on and have done a sterling job. He asked for a round of applause for them. He said he had a year to go as Chairman until he is up for re-election, but he doesn’t feel capable any more of doing what he did before. He said he would offer the post to anyone who put their name forward to take over from him. Failing that he will stay on as a figurehead, and delegate work to the rest of the Committee.
Ken asked for approval of the Minutes of last year’s AGM and this was duly done, proposed by Barbara and seconded by Ron Dubbins.
 Ken said the main event recently was that we had moved into the bigger Walpole Bay Room at Holy Trinity. The finances have stabilized and the membership has increased. We will probably reduce the number of prizes awarded annually and try and get the trophies engraved properly this year.    
4.    Financial Report by the Treasurer
Barbara handed out the income and expenditure report and the balance sheet for the year ended 31 October 2024. 
She said it was fairly straightforward and listed the income items on the Income and Expenditure Report. Ken said it would be good to get more players playing online on BBO on a Tuesday as the club does make money from it. Paul said 70% of the BBO table money goes to the club. 
The Income comprised the annual subs of £480, table money of £5842, BBO rebates (from online bridge sessions) of £495, interest of £40, Lotto income of £329, Social event income (Coffee morning + fish & chips) of £600 and teaching income of £2829. Expenditure comprised director’s fees of £12, rent of £6636, UMS (EBU) payments of £1076, admin costs of £797, insurance £75, teaching expenditure (mostly books) of £434. Total income was £10616 and total expenditure of £9029 leading to a surplus of £1587 for the year.
The balance sheet shows net assets of £7759 for the year. She said £2300 of this was from the teaching that Ken and Jacky did. 
Pat Dubbins said that directors should not pay table money when they are playing, now that the finances are stable. Barbara said this has been changed this year and the directors now do not pay.
Rosemary noted we had made more income this year. Ken said the income has been improved due to the increased number of tables on both a Wednesday and a Friday. The Wednesday numbers have increased mainly due to the beginners playing, but he said he has received reports of comments made to some beginners by some more established players and asked them to be a bit more understanding. He encouraged the beginners to call the director over any problems, so that they can explain the rules to them.
Ron Dubbins asked whether it was much more expensive to use the big room rather than the smaller one. Nigel said it was £1 an hour more so £4 a session. Barbara and Sean said that on Wednesdays we are not charged the £4, so the increase is just on a Friday.    
5.    Competition Secretary’s Report
Sean reported that we don’t have many SIMS as there aren’t that many on a Friday. We had the Children in Need SIMS competition in November and an annual prizegiving before Christmas. Ken said that he had already mentioned that we are reducing the number of trophies per year and organizing for them to be engraved. Sean said he didn’t think there was a demand to run a Chicago or teams competition at present.
Jacky said she had been contacted by the EBU to let the beginners know that there is a beginners BBO session on a Saturday afternoon they would be welcome to attend.
    
6.    Membership Secretary’s Report
Jacky gave the membership secretary’s report. Last year we had 64 members, this year we have 68 members registered. This is mostly from the new beginners. Jacky is still giving lessons privately at home to give players the confidence to come to the club.    
7.    Social Secretary’s Report
Janet Twyman said Tracey has offered to have a coffee morning and Janet has suggested having a strawberry tea in July at her house. She would need people to pay in advance so that she could arrange the catering. There would also be a raffle, as usual. There may also be a fish and chips lunch one Friday.
Ken said social events raised £600 last year and asked Janet to give him some proposed dates.
Pat Dubbins said that there should be a vote of thanks to the Social Secretary and assistants for their efforts.    
 
8.    Election of officers

Ken thanked Heather for her term as a Committee Member, as she is stepping down. The following officers were elected or re-elected as follows:    
Position    Officer        Proposer    Seconder
Chairman    Ken Walker    No one came forward to replace Ken so he remains Chairman for another year.
Vice-Chairman    Paul Gibbons    Not up for election this year        
Treasurer    Barbara Platt    Elected    Jackie Bowler    Rosemary English
Secretary    Nigel Thomas    Not up for election this year        
Membership Secretary    Jacky Hollands    Not up for election this year        
Competition Secretary    Sean Moruzzi    Elected    Janet Twyman    Barry Tooke
Social Secretary    Janet Kesterton    Not up for election this year        
Committee Member    Janet Twyman    Not up for election this year        
Committee Member    Mary Newman    Elected    Sean Moruzzi    Nigel Thomas
Committee Member    Terry Towers    Elected    Janet Kesterton    Nigel Thomas
Reviewer of Accounts    Maureen Tatham    Re-Elected        
 
    
9.    Any other business
a) Janet suggested that a general raffle might be organized for raising money for one off items like the table trolley. Ken said he wasn’t sure that was necessary as the trolley was only £130.
b) Ken asked if Jacky and Sean were prepared to teach beginners lessons and whether they would be at the club. Sean said that if there were sufficient numbers, it would be better at the club. He said he would be away in September, but they could consider starting a course in October. Ken said he thinks teaching is important for the club. Mary asked whether teaching could be done in the evening to attract younger people and people of working age. Ken said it’s difficult to access Holy Trinity in the evenings.
Paul said that once a date is decided he will arrange an advert in the Community Magazine.
b) Sean suggested that table money could be raised to £4 to improve the finances. There was a discussion about the merits or otherwise of this. Ken said the finances were stable at present. Some people said that if we needed a new dealing machine, the finance would be dented, but Paul said he believed the machine was fixable, even if it needed sending off for service again. Some people said £4 table money would be out of line with other clubs, particularly Broadstairs, who also provide tea and biscuits. Ken said this should be discussed at a Committee Meeting before being put to the AGM. He said that we had considered raising the annual subs to £12 but this was rejected by the Committee.
c) Paul said that Tyler Hill bridge club are looking to sell 16 bridge tables and wondered if any of ours need replacing. Nigel said 3 of the ones we have are being lent by club members and Ken said that some of the ones we have are quite poor, so we could maybe take 6 of them.
     

       There was no other business, so the meeting was closed.    
    

Privacy Notice for Thanet Bridge Club

What personal data does Thanet Bridge Club collect?

The data we routinely collect includes members’ names, addresses, email addresses. We collect this data directly from our members when they join the club.

For some of our members we may have additional information such as committee memberships, teaching qualifications, done with the member’s knowledge and permission, or tournament director roles.

We collect the scores from games you play, which are displayed on our results pages and used in maintaining the EBU’s National Grading Scheme (NGS) and the Master Point scheme.

What is this personal data used for?

We use members’ data for the administration of your membership; the communication of information, and the organisation of events. We provide your data to the English Bridge Union (EBU) for their use as explained in the section below.

Who is your data shared with?

Your membership data is passed on to the EBU, of which you become a member when you join Thanet Bridge Club. The EBU shares data with its associated charity, English Bridge Education and Development (EBED), since it shares offices and data systems with them, and also with Kent, or any other county that you may have nominated as your county of allegiance.

Information from your results is also passed on to the EBU for use in its master point and NGS schemes and, unless you have chosen to have your NGS grade kept private, this may also be used for stratification and handicap purposes,.

Some of your data will be available for use by Bridgewebs acting as a Data Processor on our behalf. They are not free to pass this on to other organisations that are not connected with Thanet Bridge Club.

Your personal data is not passed on by us to organisations other than those indicated above, whether or not connected with bridge.

Where does this data come from?

Data for most of our members comes from them when they join Thanet Bridge Club or when they update their information either directly or via their EBU record.

The information held by the EBU may be updated by your club if you have given it permission to change your record. You can change this permission on My EBU by going to Account -> My Details.

If you are a direct member of the EBU, you will instead have provided your personal data directly to us when you joined Thanet Bridge Club, or when you updated your  record with us.

Scoring data comes directly from the results of the club games in which you play.

How is your data stored?

This information is mainly stored in digital form on computers and in the form of written documents stored with the Membership Secretary. We use Bridgewebs as our data processor for this purpose. Any information that is stored remotely is stored in compliance with the GDPR.

Who is responsible for ensuring compliance with the relevant laws and regulations?

Under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) we do not have a statutory requirement to have a Data Protection Officer. The person who is responsible for ensuring Thanet Bridge Club discharges its obligations under the GDPR is Club Secretary.

Who has access to your data?

Members of the committee of Thanet Bridge Club have access to members’ data in order for them to carry out their legitimate tasks for the organisations.

Sub-contractors of Thanet Bridge Club may be given access to data for specific tasks, such as sending mailings. They are not free to use it for any other purpose.

What is the legal basis for collecting this data?

Thanet Bridge Club collects personal data that is necessary for the purposes of its legitimate interests as a membership organisation and participant in an internationally recognised and regulated, competitive mind sport.

For some data, such as that relating to financial matters, the basis for its collection and retention is to comply with our legal obligations.

Similarly, personnel data is kept in compliance with our legal obligations.

How you can check what data we have about you?

If you want to see the basic membership data we hold about you, you should contact the Membership Secretary.

You can contact us with a “Subject Access Request” if you want to ask us to provide you with any other information we hold about you. If you are interested in any particular aspects, specifying them will help us to provide you with what you need quickly and efficiently. We are required to provide this to you within one month.

There is not usually a fee for this, though we can charge a reasonable fee based on the administrative cost of providing the information if a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive,  or for requests for further copies of the same information.

Does Thanet Bridge Club collect any “special” data?

The GDPR refers to sensitive personal data as “special categories of personal data”.  

We do not record any such special data. If you wish to change this data on your record you can do so at any time by contacting the Membership Secretary.

How can you ask for data to be removed, limited or corrected?

There are various ways in which you can limit how your data is used.

• If you wish you could become an “anonymous” member. This would involve you having a pseudonym with an EBU number under which you would play. If you do this however, you would not be able to access any EBU membership benefits such as the magazine or playing in EBU tournaments.
• You could maintain your club membership with your correct name but with limited contact details. However, we do need to have at least one method of contacting you. You could for example simply maintain an up-to-date email address, but of course this would limit what we and the EBU are able to provide you with in the way of written information, so you would not be able to get English Bridge in printed form or any other benefits that require a mailing address.
• You do not need to provide us with your date of birth unless you wish to enter age-limited (junior or seniors) events or gain concessions based on age.
• If you do not want your NGS grade to be public, you may choose for it to be kept private. You can change this option as often as you wish.
• You may choose not to appear in master point promotions lists.
• You may choose not to receive information emails from Thanet Bridge Club (we do not send any out on behalf of other organisations).
• Any of these options can be implemented for your club membership by contacting the Membership Secretary.
• Any of these options can be implemented for your EBU membership by logging on to My EBU, going to Account –> My Details and editing your record there, either to correct erroneous data or to delete information you do not wish us to have . If you need any assistance with this you may contact the Office Manager membership@ebu.co.uk.

How long we keep your data for, and why?

We normally keep members’ data after they resign or their membership lapses in case they later wish to re-join. However, we will delete any former member’s contact details entirely on request.

Since underlying statistical data, like scores from bridge games, continues to be necessary in relation to the purpose for which it was originally collected and processed, results from events used for the NGS are not deleted byThanet Bridge Club or the EBU although they will no longer be attributed to a player who does not want their data to be kept.

Historical ranking lists and prize lists are required for archiving purposes and names cannot be removed from them.

Other data, such as that relating to accounting or personnel matters, is kept for the legally required period.

What happens if a member dies?

We normally keep members’ information after they die. If requested by their next-of-kin to delete it we will do so on the same basis as when requested to remove data as a former member.

Can you download your data to use it elsewhere?

Your session data that is held by the EBU can be downloaded as a csv spreadsheet. You can do this by logging on to My EBU and in your Sessions list, clicking on “Download as CSV”. To access data held by Thanet Bridge Club contact the Club Secretary.

THE THANET BRIDGE CLUB

CONSTITUTION

1.         NAME

            The Club shall be called THE THANET BRIDGE CLUB

2.         AFFILIATION

            The Club shall be affiliated to the English Bridge Union.

3.         OBJECTS

The object of the Club will be to provide its members with facilities for playing Contract Bridge in accordance with the rules and principles laid down by the English Bridge Union; to employ the funds as the Committee may deem to be in the best interests of the Club, regard being given to the fact that it shall be non-profit making, and shall not accrue any debt.

4.         ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Annual General Meeting shall be held before the end of March each year to receive reports and for the election of Officers, Committee and other officials as may be required, and to deal with other matters of the Agenda only.     

5.         OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE

The officers of the Club shall be Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Secretary, Competition Secretary and Social Secretary, each of whom shall hold office for a period of two years, together with three other members, to form a Committee to serve for two years.   Half the officers and committee members should be elected in any one year.   (It should be noted that all Officers and committee members can offer themselves for re-election).   On the recommendation of the Committee, the Club may elect a President or Vice-President(s) for Life in recognition of their past services, and they shall be elected ex-officio members of the Committee.

6.         MANAGEMENT

The business of the Club shall be conducted by the Committee who shall have entire control thereof, and who shall, at their discretion, deal with any matters in the Club which may not be provided for in this Constitution.   The Committee shall consist of a quorum comprising not less than five members of the Committee.   The Committee shall be assisted by two sub-Committees:-

1. The Membership sub-Committee comprising the Membership Secretary, the Chairman and one other person appointed by the main Committee.
2. The Competitions and Scoring sub-Committee comprising the Competition Secretary, the Chairman and all the scorers who are involved with scoring Club events.   Additional member(s) may be co-opted.

7.         ALTERATIONS TO THE CONSITUTION

Any proposed alteration to the Constitution must be made at a General Meeting of the Club, and a notice of the proposed alteration must be sent to the Secretary in writing, fourteen days before such a meeting and the alteration to be included in the notice convening the meeting.

8.         INFORMATION RE MEETINGS ETC

Such information regarding general meetings etc. will be deemed to be given to Members by posting a notice on the Club Notice Board not less than fourteen days prior to the date of that meeting.

9.         ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS

The Annual Subscription to the Club shall be fixed by the Committee, and there shall be a charge for each person playing in Club events.

10.       MEMBERSHIP 

a)         The total membership shall be restricted to such numbers as the Committee shall decide, regard being given to the playing facilities available.

b)         A visitor, or a member’s guest may attend the Club subject to table limitation, but may not participate on more than three occasions, after which time they may be invited to apply to become members of the club on payment of the relevant subscription.

c)         Any person who has completed the relevant membership application form, which is pending consideration by the Membership Sub-Committee, and for whom there is no know objection, should be allowed to attend as a Visitor, and charged table money as if a member, until Sub-Committee approval is granted.

11.       DISPUTES

All disputes shall be referred to the Committee, whose decision is final.

12.       CONDUCT OF MEMBERS

            Should the conduct of any Club Member, in the opinion of the Committee, or any six members (who shall certify the name in writing to the Committee) be injurious to the interests of the Club, the Committee shall be empowered to recommend, in writing, such a Member resign.   If he/she does not comply within fourteen days of such recommendation, the Committee shall then call a Special Meeting of the Club, and if the meeting agree to the expulsion of such a Member  he/she shall cease to be a member and forfeit all rights of membership of the Thanet Bridge Club.   A notice of such event shall be notified to the English Bridge Union.

13.       SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING

            A Special General Meeting of the Club may be convened at any time by the Committee, or through them by six members of the Club, giving at least fourteen days notice, in writing, to the Secretary of the reasons for calling such a Special Meeting.

Date:   25^th November 2002

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