New Youth Initiative

Update: 23 January 2021

Yes, the project is underway despite the suspension of face‑to‑face bridge, and we’re still looking for donations.

Many thanks to those who have so far pledged: £13,800.

Although the Young Chelsea closed for face‑to‑face events to comply with government instructions to cope with COVID‑19 (coronavirus), and the pilot course planned for the weekend of 18 & 19 April 2020 had to be cancelled, work has continued in the background in preparation for our re‑opening when the course will be re‑launched.

The new student teaching course will be held over the weekend 9 & 10 October 2021.

Reaching out to students and young adults generally across London is a mammoth task. Our young members have boldly taken the lead. We need every member to support them. Yes, your financial support is vital, but so too is your local knowledge. Only you know who runs your local youth orchestra, only you know where your local pub quizzes are held, only you know where your local young professionals hang out. Please help us by doing a little local research and sending us a list of contact names and emails. Thank you.

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India Leeming

Athena Chow

Louise Selway

We are very pleased to have launched an exciting new project aimed at recruiting new, younger members. We will primarily be targeting university students in London, and the aim is to offer to teach every single one how to play bridge. That’s a pretty massive task, as there are 375,000 of them! The project is being driven forward by a YC Youth Committee comprising three of our younger members—the YCYC chairman is India Leeming who is working alongside Athena Chow and Louise Selway.

It is envisaged that the first courses will be held early in the next academic year, but there is much to be done now in order to reach out and contact potential new players. And importantly, once basic tuition has been provided, new players will need mentoring through further lessons and supervised play etc until they are able to develop further without assistance. Then the plan is to run parallel student duplicates, organised alongside the regular Monday‑ and Friday‑night games, so that in time those who are keen can graduate to the main duplicates.

We had planned to pilot the new programme by running a course for chess players—many of whom are young. This was cancelled because of Coronavirus and we now plan to launch the full student programme as soon as we are able to. This will be run jointly with chess players and others like pub quizzers and board‑gamers.  David Parry, previously a professional bridge teacher will be helping with this, along with Chris Duckworth. We have good contacts with the chess community through the Hammersmith Chess Club who now meet regularly at the club, and expect a healthy turnout for this.

Although teaching for the first courses will be provided by volunteers, there will be significant costs associated with the youth project as a whole. Students will be charged only a heavily subsidised rate for the course, but publicity costs will be substantial and teachers will need to be paid later. So we are launching an appeal to members to help raise funds.

The aim is to raise £50,000 to support this initiative, and we are confident that there are many YC members who will want to help out with donations for this important work. All donations will be ring‑fenced for the Youth Project, and because this is part of our work as a registered charity, donations can be made subject to Gift Aid, which makes them worth more. If you have not already signed a Gift Aid form, supplies are available at the club or you will can download one from the Gift Aid tab on the left of the website homepage.

Members can also help by recommending the course to young people that they know—it doesn’t need to be exclusively for university students. All of you must know someone you could encourage to learn to play—sons or daughters, grandchildren, nephews or nieces, brothers or sisters, boyfriends or girlfriends, younger employees, a friend with young relatives etc.

Donations are best made by bank transfer, using “YOUTH” as a reference (or “YOUTH ANON” if you don’t want your name publicised). The account details are:

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Item posted 22 February 2020, updated 23 January 2021