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2023 Spring Charity Bridge Festival

Photographs taken during the 2023 Bridge Festival

Cirencester Bridge Group 

Belfast Bridge Group

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Follow-up email - 29 May 2023 

2023 u3a SPRING CHARITY BRIDGE FESTIVAL – 22-26 May

Hi,

We hope you enjoyed playing in our 2^nd annual Bridge Festival.

The majority of the Festival results are now available here:

https://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwx/bw.cgi?club=u3abridgegroup&pid=display_page77

We are, however, expecting a couple of revisions over the next day or so.

The commentaries are available on the same page; I would certainly recommend that you review these as an excellent self-learning tool to see how the professionals would have bid and played the game.

Many of you have already paid in your donation, but if you have yet to do so, could you please refer to the guidance notes at the bottom of this page:

https://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwx/bw.cgi?club=u3abridgegroup&pid=display_page77

We hope to repeat the Festival at about the same time next year, but in the meantime please sign-up at 

https://hotmail.us18.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=0854ab3f37af72e89f1eb3c31&id=eb66fe6341

to be kept informed of the latest news from the u3a national bridge team.

We look forward to meeting you all again at our 3^rd Annual Bridge Festival.

Best regards,

Steve Carter and the Bridge Festival Team

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News-sheet 3 - May 2023 

2023 u3a SPRING CHARITY BRIDGE FESTIVAL – 22-26 May

Hello u3a Bridge Players, 

This is the third News-sheet and the last before the u3a 2023 Bridge Charity Festival begins. News-sheets 1 and 2 containing other preliminary information can be found on the website.   

Registration is open until 15th May at Register here 

If you are playing offline as a u3a Bridge Group or online at BBO, BCL or RealBridge, then the hands will be automatically sent to your nominated Card Handler. 

If you are an online individual player, please nominate your preferred playing day(s) which will be confirmed after 15th May. 

Scoring:  Your last game must end before 10pm on 26 May 2023. 

 Manual Scoring: Please enter the scores into EBUScore or ScoreBridge,  so that your scores can be included in the national results. Further information on uploading the scores to ECatsBridge is available here:

 Electronic scoring: Please extract the xml file and send in the results; further details are available using this link: 

Results and commentaries: Will be available the following day at this link

To try playing online:  For a free 14-day trial on Bridge Club Live, contact prayment7@gmail.com 

Payment: 

• Offline: Please would the Co-ordinator collect the fees and donations and send as one payment  

• Online:  Each individual player is asked to pay directly using BACS etc. 

Further details as to how to pay will be sent to all participants.                 

Up-to-date news of the Bridge Festival and general u3a Bridge news please click here: 

FAQs: For more general information click: here             

What next?  

Joanne Smith, the Editor of TAM (Third Age Matters) Magazine has requested that clubs playing Face-to-Face Bridge during the Festival send in photographs of the event.  

(Verbal) Permission will be required of all participants; please send to u3aBridgeGroup@hotmail.com

 We hope you enjoy playing in the Bridge Festival; please spread the word to your u3a Bridge-playing friends so that they can also enjoy the Bridge. 

Enjoy your Bridge,  

Steve Carter and the Bridge Festival Team.  

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News-sheet 2 - March 2023

2023 u3a SPRING CHARITY BRIDGE FESTIVAL – 22-26 May

The u3a Spring Charity Bridge Festival will soon be here. This second News-sheet is to bring you up to date, invite you to talk to your groups and start registering to play; there’s something for everyone. Some players have already registered, which is good news! 

Registration is open until 15^th May at Register for the Festival   

Platforms:  

If you are playing Offline at your regular meeting venue, in members’ homes, or your own game at home. 24 hands will be sent to your nominated non-playing Co-ordinator and you can play any number of boards to suit your meeting time (recommended minimum is 18 boards).  Please provide the name, phone number and email address of the person who will be setting up your boards, along with the date on which you’ll be playing (which may be at any day during the 5-day Festival). 

If you are playing Online at Bridge Base Online (BBO), Bridge Club Live (BCL), RealBridge, IntoBridge and StepBridge, the boards will change each day. Please refrain from playing more than once a day in the spirit of the u3a Bridge Festival .Your last game must end before 10pm on 26 May 2023. The number of boards will, as usual, depend on the number of players and the movement – ie Howell, Mitchell. Up to 24 hands will be available. 

Scoring: 

If you use Manual Scoring then please enter the scores into EBUScore or ScoreBridge  before 10.00pm each day, so that your scores can be included in the national results. Further information on uploading the scores to ECatsBridge is available here.

If you use electronic scoring. please extract the xml file and send in the results; further (sample) details are available using this link scoring  

Results and commentaries: These will be available on the following day. 

Try playing online: If you would like a free 14-day trial on Bridge Club Live, contact prayment7@gmail.com - one of our Regional Bridge Co-ordinators.   

Cost: The recommended minimum charity donation is £3 per session, but contributions above this would be greatly appreciated. This covers the administrative costs of the event (50p plus VAT); the balance to be divided equally between this year’s charities Alzheimer's Research and AgeUK.  

Payment

For Offline play, would the Coordinator please collect the fees and donations and send in as one payment.

For Online play, each individual player is asked to pay directly using BACS etc..

Further details as to how to pay will be sent to all participants.

For up-to-date news of the Bridge Festival and general u3a Bridge news visit here or our FAQ's

Help Line: Pam Rayment prayment7@gmail.com 

What next? Unexpected things are bound to happen – they always do! Please send your stories and photos to Pam Rayment, prayment7@gmail.com   so we can share them after the event.   

Enjoy your Bridge,  

A further news-sheet will be issued before May’s Bridge Festival, providing full details of how to join in the fun. 

Steve Carter and the Bridge Festival Team.  

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QUARTERLY EMAILS (to Chairs, Secretaries and Treasurers - circulation approx. 2,600)

February 2023

40th Anniversary Charity Bridge Festival

Bulletin4- October 2022

Hello Bridge Players, 

Our First national Bridge Festival is over and we hope those of you who played in it enjoyed it as much as we did.

This is Bulletin 4, to follow up and confirm where you can find the results and professional commentaries on how the hands should have been played.  Please click here ECatsBridge - Results

500+ Players took part from as far north as Inverness, Kingsbury Estuary in the south, Upper Bann in the west and Stour Valley in the east. 

Congratulations to the 5 pairs who came first during the week:

Eileen Williams & Linda Mcmillan - u3a Bridge Group, England

Mary Marshall & David Marshall - Ashbourne u3a, England

Don Pilbeam & Jane Pilbeam - Witney u3a, England

Babs Bensley & Marilyn Pascoe - u3a Bridge Group, England

John Carroll & Vivienne Carroll - High Lane u3a, England

Our members have raised in excess of £1,000 to be mainly distributed to the following national charities:

Alzheimer's Research

Cancer Research UK

Age UK

as well as to some local charities:

Ashbourne u3a

Chrysalis Dementia Club (Tynedale)

It’s still not too late to pay your ‘table money’, or if you weren't able to play, to make a donation - please do so here:  ECatsBridge - donate

If you have any feedback and suggestions for the future, we’d like to hear from you. Please send them to your Regional Bridge Contact. 

250+ pairs around the UK was an encouraging start, on the strength of which we’re planning to hold a second tournament in Spring 2023. In order not to miss out, sign-up now at  u3abridegenetwork (list-manage.com).

Some u3a members who played Simultaneous Pairs thoroughly enjoyed themselves so, in the meantime, there’s an opportunity to play in November, in the Children in Need tournament hosted by ECatsdBridge, the same organisation that hosted our tournament so efficiently. (N.B. This is not a u3a event but will be a great opportunity to play simultaneous pairs against other Bridge players around the UK, including some of the best. As before, the professional commentaries will be available afterwards to help to improve your game). Here’s the link ECatsBridge_CIN 

In order to stay up-to-date with all that is happening with u3a Bridge, please sign-up to our regular emails at u3abridegenetwork (list-manage.com) 

 Enjoy your Bridge and we’re looking forward to our next national tournament.

Steve Carter and the 40^thAnniversary Charity Bridge Festival Team.

12 Members of Lindsey u3a playing in Thursday's session.

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Bulletin3- August 2022

The festival is fast approaching! 

This is Bulletin 3 with the final details for the first u3a national Bridge Festival, celebrating the 40^th Anniversary of the movement. We’ve tried our best to contact all u3a Bridge Groups and players. If you know of anyone we’ve missed, it’s not too late to put them in touch. 

To summarise: 

Dates: 19-23 September 2022, inclusive. 

Platforms

– online: Bridge Base Online (BBO), Bridge Club Live (BCL), StepBridge or RealBridge.

There will be up to 24 boards which will change each day. Please play them in consecutive order for scoring reasons. And please refrain from playing more than once a day.

These are the dates for those players who are not playing as an online group but wish to join others online (single entry).

– offline: at your regular meeting venue, at one of our local hubs, in members’ homes, or your own game at home. 24 dealt hands will be sent by ECatsBridge to your nominated Coordinator (non-playing). It’s recommended that you play them in sequence.

Registration is open until 9^th September at:  u3a40_Registration 

Your last game must be played before 10pm. Hands should only be played once, in the spirit of the u3a Festival. The number of hands will, as usual, depend on the number of players and the movement – ie Howell, Mitchell.  

Scoring – will depend upon how you are playing i.e as a group, single entry etc. Please refer to the guidance notes at u3a40 Guidance notes

Your scores can be included in the national results database. If your group isn't using electronic scoring, you might be able to join a local hub.

Local Hubs – feedback from Bulletins 1 & 2 has revealed that a number of our members who are playing Chicago or Rubber Bridge have expressed a wish to join a local Duplicate session. If your group is able to offer this facility please add to the list at u3a local hub

Results and commentaries: - Please refer to the guidance notes at u3a40 Guidance notes 
To find a partner:  We want to include as many members as possible in our online celebrations, so don’t miss-out by not having a partner. Fill-in one of our online forms at:

Find-a-partner BridgeClubLive

Find-a-partner BBO or RealBridge

To try playing online in advance of the festival, free, on any of the 3 major online Bridge-playing platforms, please click on the preferred link:  

BridgeClubLive

BBO (BridgeBaseOnline)

RealBridge  

Cost: As well as having fun playing Bridge, we’d like to raise money for charity during the festival.

The recommended charity donation would be your group's normal "table money" per person, per session, payable after the event, but contributions over and above this would be greatly appreciated. This covers the administrative costs of the event (50p plus VAT) and excess funds will be divided equally over the five playing days and the winning pair each day invited to nominate the charity of their choice (in line with u3a's charitable objectives).

Payment - Please refer to the guidance notes at u3a40 Guidance notes 

For up-to-date news of the 40th Anniversary Bridge Festival and general u3a Bridge news visit: U3aBridgeGroup, United Kingdom (bridgewebs.com)  

What next? Unexpected things are bound to happen – they always do! Please send your stories and photos to Pam Rayment (prayment7@gmail.com) so we can share them after the event.   

Enjoy your Bridge,  

Steve Carter and the 40^thAnniversary Charity Bridge Festival Team.   

P.S. 
Background to u3a’s 40^th Anniversary 

From the start, the guiding principles were to promote lifelong learning through self-help interest groups covering a wide range of topics and activities as chosen by their members.  

The 'third age' is defined by a time in your life (not necessarily chronological) where you have the opportunity to undertake learning for its own sake. There is no minimum age, but a focus on people who are no longer in full-time employment or raising a family. 

Our founders envisaged a collaborative approach with peers learning from each other. The U3A movement was to be self-funded, with members not working towards qualifications but learning purely for pleasure. There would be no distinction between the learners and the teachers – everyone could take a turn at being both if they wished. 

From its beginnings in 1981, the movement grew very quickly and by the early 1990s, a U3A was opening every fortnight. U3As grew in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and in 2008 membership was increasing by 11% every year. 2010 saw our membership hitting the quarter million mark. 

At the end of 2016 the U3A movement reached the milestone of 1,000 U3As celebrated by a conference with speakers including Eric Midwinter – one of the founders of the U3A movement. 

Today, our movement includes over 400,000 u3a members in more than 1,000 u3a’s and is continuing to grow every day. 

Please see below a link to the international countries which has organisations.

https://www.u3asites.org.uk/international/members

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Bulletin2 - July 2022

This Bulletin brings you up to date with progress for u3a’s 40th Anniversary Charity Bridge Festival, during the week 19 to 23 September 2022.

We are now taking entries for both online and offline games for the Festival. Please register before 9^th September.

We are pleased to report that “ECatsBridge”, which many of you will have heard of raising money for charities each year, will be undertaking the administration of our Bridge Festival.

There will be a 'nominal' charge of £1 "table money" per person, per session, payable after the event; this covers the administrative costs of the event (50p plus VAT). Excess funds over the "table money" will be divided equally over the five playing days and the winning pair each day will be invited to nominate the charity of their choice.

For the Online games, boards will be available on BBO, BCL and Real Bridge and you may play as many boards as you like each day. Online players may play on successive days with different boards. Please refrain from playing more than once per day.

For those members playing “offline” any number of boards can be played on any day during or after the festival and we will be asking for a 'nominal' contribution per session, as above.

If anyone needs to find a partner, they should use the “Find a partner” link.

Results will be published on the ECatsBridge website and on our u3aBridgegroup page on the day following the event.

Daily commentaries will normally be published on the following day; these will give a comprehensive analysis of the way the experts would have bid and played each hand, providing an invaluable self-teaching aid.

If anyone would like to try playing online in advance of the Festival, free, on either Bridge Club Live or RealBridge, then please click on your preferred link:

RealBridge

BridgeClubLive

If any members of your group have been thinking about playing online Bridge and are a “maybe”, this is their chance to try playing online free of charge, so please share this invitation with them.

An exciting aspect of the Festival is that we can combine daily results from all 4 nations with a resultant ranking per pair, showing how well you did (or not!!) against other u3a players.

We can only achieve this if your group is using electronic scoring. If your group is not using electronic scoring then why not join a local hub? Those groups that are already using electronic scoring could act as a local hub for other smaller groups.

Please visit this link if your u3a can offer these facilities or if you'd like to attend a u3a that is a hub:

Local Hub

We’re sorry we cannot cater for Beginners this year.

For up-to-date news of the 40th Anniversary Bridge Festival and general u3a Bridge news visit:

U3aBridgeGroup, United Kingdom (bridgewebs.com)

We will send a final Bulletin nearer the time.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Enjoy your Bridge,

Steve Carter and the 40^th Anniversary Charity Bridge Festival Team.

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Bulletin1 - May 2022

We’re pleased to report that we’re off to a great start to our 40^th Anniversary Bridge celebration and thank you to all who’ve replied to our preliminary enquiry. 

 Whether you are: 

  - Playing online 

 - Playing face-to-face Duplicate  

 - 4+ players gathering for a game of Chicago or Rubber Bridge 

 we hope there’ll be “something for everyone” for the five days of Monday 19th to Friday 23rd September 2022, based around Simultaneous Pairs with follow-up commentaries. 

 Responses to our preliminary enquiries indicate that in excess of 350 pairs are keen to play and replies are still coming in. In addition, a number have said “possibly” while waiting for more details. 

This first bulletin is to update you on progress. 

We have set-up a dedicated u3a 40th Anniversary Bridge website at: 

 www.bridgewebs.com/u3abridgegroup/

 where the latest information will always be available. 

 On the same website, we’ve also set-up the following:  

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)     

“Find a Partner” option on the website for those who would like to play online     

"Returning to Bridge” option for those returning to Bridge, to help them get going again  

If the website does not address your questions, please continue to contact your regional Bridge contact in the first instance.

We know that some small Bridge groups would like to join the Festival but have insufficient numbers to play Duplicate Bridge and we are looking into the possibility of setting up "Local Bridge Hubs” to accommodate them – this feature has been added to the website and we'd be extremely grateful if your group could offer this functionality to other local u3as.

We’ll be in touch again in June/July with detailed plans and the intention is that everything will be set up before the summer holidays begin in earnest. 

Another great thing that has come out of this is that Steve Carter has been appointed u3a Subject Adviser for Bridge. Jack Rouse has been the Adviser for over 5 years and has now passed the baton to Steve. Jack will continue to host Bridge Competitions on BridgeBaseOnline (BBO) for the foreseeable future. 

Please spread the word to your Group Members and don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like information you can't find on our website.