Members might find looking back on this- from 2019 and before the Covid pandemic - quite interesting. At the time Warrington Bridge Club was in decline, like many Bridge Clubs up and down the country. Your Committee resolved to do something about it, rather than preside over a shrinking membership, and sessions which were becoming less and less viable. We set up a strategy, and implemented it, modifying as we went along, as we learned what worked well and what didn't. The results have been gratifying so far, as our membership is steadily increasing, and our sessions, both face to face and on-line, are growing a little. We have an established venue, and a Committee which is proactive in building resilience, ie less dependency on one or two key individuals.
Warrington Bridge Club: Our Future (our thoughts back in 2019)
Observations: the Club is somewhat declining in active membership, as evidenced by decreasing turn-out on Club evenings. Of late we have sadly lost a few members through death or ill-health, which unfortunately is typical of an aging demographic. This is hardly unique to Warrington Bridge Club - it is a feature of most UK bridge clubs. Therefore, unless we can deliver a fairly regular stream of new members, perhaps averaging 4 to 6 per year, our Club will eventually cease to be able to operate. A larger number would be better.
On the plus side, recent Club developments have been very positive, for example getting a grant, having computerised dealing with hands available afterwards on the website, having some extra funds for the purpose of developing bridge in our area, running our improvers sessions on Monday afternoons, and getting heavily involved with the new U3A "Improvers Plus" class which started in September 2019. Let’s build on this, with the aim of not just surviving, but growing and thriving into the future.
What follows below might seem very challenging and ambitious, but please consider what is likely to happen without it, or something like it. There is demand out there, as evidenced by the fact that Warrington U3A bridge classes are regularly full/over-subscribed.
Objective: keeping the Warrington Bridge Club thriving by delivering a constant stream of new members.
How?
I propose we need to give attention to all stages of a development continuum, where
Stage 1 = complete beginners, or near-complete beginners
Stage 2 = improvers/ developers – those who’ve learnt some bridge, eg at U3A, or have played a little bridge before
Stage 3 = those ready for gentle duplicate or less formal club duplicate, or already started playing at this level, and could soon move up to serious club duplicate
Stage 4 = playing serious club duplicate, but still gaining experience to be confident and capable at that level
Stage 5 = regular experienced club players, ready to take on (or already taking on) some additional roles such as TD.
- STAGE 1
Attracting beginners is probably the hardest to achieve. The approach should be (a) to actively work to attract interest and (b) to set up a number of options on what to offer those who do express and interest. We need to do both in tandem.
Attracting interest:
- Advertise- eg in local shops, local free newspapers (though paying for advertising is unlikely to be value for money, and so is probably a poor option), existing clubs such as Golf Clubs (Warrington, Lymm, etc), and work closely with U3A (to give U3A a route to feed names to us if they’re full up, or at times of year when new beginner sessions are a while off). Any other ideas?
- Set up a Facebook account, and advertise/ link in to existing local Facebook accounts, eg Stockton Heath, Grappenhall Village.
- Set up an email account (already done: PlayBridgeWarrington@gmail.com), where people could express interest and email us their name, contact details, and level of bridge experience, if any. We’d be interested, of course, in new people irrespective of their bridge experience – for example, if they already knew how to play a little, they could slot straight into Stage 2.
Offerings for beginners - options include:
- Run one (or more, depending on numbers) one-off taster sessions for beginners
- Run a short programme of beginner lessons
- Recommend and put them in touch with U3A (see Appendix for details of bridge at U3A)
- Recommend specific on-line learning system (eg No Fear Bridge)
- Run informal teaching sessions in groups of 4 (eg as Linda Ince already does at her house)
The aim would be to establish a group of beginners, and help them learn and progress to stage 2.
Note : Liaison with Warrington U3A will be important, to build on what’s already happening. The U3A classes are popular, but limited capacity, and are regularly full up. There is teaching and play, but only rubber bridge, rather than duplicate. They run new classes starting each September for Beginners, Improvers, and Improvers+, and weekly playing sessions. (see Appendix for more detail)
- STAGE 2
Attracting interest:
We should use the same mechanisms as outlined for Stage 1, but perhaps with extra emphasis on picking up those who have got involved via U3A.
Offerings for improvers:
- Supervised play and lessons. This is now up and running successfully on Monday afternoons at Warrington Golf Club, and we already have 18 names on our Warrington Improvers register. It started before Christmas 2018, and is going quite well.
- Have an (attractive) Improvers page on our BridgeWebs site.
- Have content (eg on an Instagram account), such as copies of the handouts of the lessons we have run.
- STAGE 3
Attracting interest:
The same mechanisms as outlined for Stage 1 might yield a few players, but the main source of people would be those coming up from our Stage 2 supervised play and lessons.
Aim towards being able to run a regular gentle duplicate session of 5+ tables, say one afternoon a week (we are a fairly long way off that at this stage – at least a year, probably two or more). This would require a regular turnout of at least 20 players, supported by a few (at least 2 per session) experienced players from the Club to run the sessions and provide advice to players. We’d allow a generous time per hand, and perhaps only try to to get 16 or 18 boards in a session. A possible arrangement would be to run this alongside the supervised play and lessons, at the same venue, eg on a Monday afternoon. The venue might be Warrington Golf Club, as at present, or some other location such as Appleton Village Hall, or whatever we can find suitable. It would be for the future, as present Improvers would move up to gentle duplicate, and a new batch of Improvers would attend supervised play and lessons at Stage 2.
There is a possibility that if a gentle duplicate session were to be run, we might be able to attract one or two players from existing less “formal/serious” groups, assuming the timing did not clash, such as the Tuesday evening duplicate sessions run by Linda Ince at Stretton Church Hall. Also Pat Morris runs weekly rubber bridge on Tuesday evenings at Sandy Lane, and a duplicate session on alternate Thursdays also at Sandy Lane. Of course, this would have to be the offer of additional bridge to such people, not in any way an attempt to entice people away from what they’re already doing.
Further information which might have a bearing, regarding Warrington Golf Club:
- The long-standing WGC Bridge Section Duplicate on Monday evenings is, like many bridge clubs and bridge sections, suffering a decline in playing numbers. A typical number of tables now is 3 or 4. Its longer-term future is unclear. Afternoon bridge is generally becoming more and more popular, while attendance at evening bridge sessions is tending to decline. I have already asked the WGC Bridge Section, via Bill Clay (the organiser), if they’d be interested in moving their session to a Monday afternoon and running alongside our Improvers sessions. Unfortunately the answer I got was a resounding "No".
- STAGE 4
It is, I believe, in our interests to encourage people to start coming to regular duplicate sessions even when quite inexperienced. This is challenging, as some might feel it drags down the standard of bridge, and it requires a lot of forbearance by more experienced players. However, it offers us the best chance to get our numbers up, and necessitates us all getting into the habit of being friendly and welcoming, and not making sharp and critical comments, or being intimidating, when someone makes a mistake or plays a bit slowly. I have still been hearing comments that our reputation remains a bit serious and stuffy, despite the improvement over the past few years, and not welcoming to newer less experienced players – so we still have work to do in that regard.
It is possible that one of our two regular weekly duplicate sessions might tend to gravitate to more of a mixed ability session, and the other a more serious one. This would be a mixed blessing, and might or might not be something we would actively seek to encourage.
- STAGE 5
This entails doing what we already try to do, but possibly slightly more proactively. For example, invite specific individuals to go on a TD course, rather than wait for them to volunteer. Similarly, invite specific individuals to be trained on operation of the computer system (including Bridgemates, Bridgewebs site, computer dealing, etc).
- Geography, and competition from other clubs
The centre of gravity of our activities is south Warrington/Stockton Heath, while our main player feed source for the above is, at present, U3A. Many players if sticking with the game will naturally gravitate to north Warrington, Culcheth, etc, so to attract and keep members we need to do our utmost to make a very attractive offering, and ensure that playing bridge at Warrington Bridge Club is always a pleasure – the most popular club for bridge players in the Warrington area.
- Next steps
- Get buy-in from the Club Committee to this strategy paper.
- Communicate what we’re doing to all members.
- Create an action plan, with named individuals responsible, and timescales.
Jim Steele
April 2019; Revised Sep 2019, Nov 2019
Appendix U3A Bridge Lessons and Playing
The Bridge Group Leader is Andrew Young (01925 267427/ 07817 377238), who was also chairman of Warrington U3A, until MID- 2019. Andrew will be continuing to lead U3A bridge.
Beginners: U3A offers a one year Beginners Bridge class, starting on Thursday, 12th September 2019 and running for 12 months. A 2nd year follow-on course for Improvers is also available (see below). No previous Bridge knowledge is required, as full tuition and playing experience is provided in a friendly and non-competitive environment. Weekly, Thursdays, 10:30hrs to 12:30hrs. Venue: Olive Tree Community Centre, Chapel Road, Penketh, Warrington, WA5 2NB.
Improvers:
U3A also offers a one year Bridge Improvers class, also starting on Thursday, 12th September 2019 and running for 12 months. The class is for those who were on the Beginners course last year or those who wish to renew their friendship with Bridge after an absence. It is weekly on Thursdays, same time and venue as the Beginners class.
Improvers+:
New from September 2019 is a 3rd year class, called Improvers+. It runs on Thursday afternoons, 130-330pm, also at Olive Tree Community Centre in Penketh. Both Jim Steele and Mike Dennis are heavily involved with supporting this class.
Developers:
The Bridge for Developers Group meets on Tuesdays from 10:30hrs to 12:30hrs at the Fairfield and Howley Community Project, The Old School, Fairfield St, Warrington WA1 3AJ (near to the large Sainsburys). It is for bridge players who are still developing their skills, possibly after attending the Beginners and Improvers courses in previous years.
A partner is not required. With varying numbers attending each week, there is not always an exact number of tables, so players are expected to move round to accommodate this situation. Players at any level are very welcome to join in. Play is standard ACOL. Experienced players should expect to play with others who are much less experienced than themselves, and should not be critical.
Players:
The Bridge for Players Group meets every Friday from 10:30hrs to 12:30hrs at the Fairfield Neighbourhood Project, Fairfield Street, Warrington, WA1 3AJ. Free parking is available in their car park.
A partner is not required. With varying numbers attending each week, there is not always an exact number of tables, so players will need move round to accommodate this situation. The expectation is that people attending this session have a reasonable skill level, as no formal training is given, but friendly and helpful advice is always available.
Class sizes for beginners and improvers is approx. 20 people. For Improvers+ it is 32.
Duplicate : No attempt is made to teach or play duplicate bridge– it is all rubber bridge, except at the new Improvers+ class, where Duplicate is being introduced.
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