The following message was published as the editorial in the February 2023 issue of English Bridge:
By the time you read this, the National Pairs Championship will be nearly under way. This year we’re taking the novel step of selecting participants in the Regional Finals based on club scores between 5th February and 18th February. Just turn up at your club at any time during that period, and score more than 55%, and you’ll be invited to play in your closest regional final online, on 26th March. We could not have made it easier for you to enter the National Pairs, because you now don’t have to enter at all. Just turn up for your regular game. The Grand Final will also be online this year, on 15th-16th April, and will involve the top fifty participants from the combined scores of the Regional Finals. I hope this new method of entry leads to a strong and vibrant competition.
Starting soon, on March 25th, will be our new series of one-day Green-Pointed events. Over the course of the season there will be a mixture of pairs and teams, on RealBridge and BBO. Something for everyone, then, and all games will be stratified for Master Point Awards.
The recent Year End Congress was judged a success, in relative terms – attendances were up, with a lot of people making their first foray into the tournament world post-Covid.
Success builds upon success, and if people come, and enjoy the atmosphere as much as the game, things will continue to improve. David Burn and I played with each other in the teams, lining up with two former members of the under 26 Womens squad, Daisy Dillon & Hanna Tuus. Not only did Daisy and Hanna play a perfectly respectable game, they also displayed remarkable tolerance when two old fools who should know better got the responses to Blackwood wrong (on the bright side, this was an improvement on an event a few years ago when, on the penultimate board of a two-day session, it became clear that Burn had been playing 2/1 throughout and I hadn’t, but that’s all water under the er…well, it’s all water). A most pleasant day out, and home in time for dinner.
Attendances are also a problem with clubs, of course. It’s no secret that the demographic of most bridge clubs means that new members are always necessary to make up for the losses at the other end. Since the end of the pandemic, some people who might have continued for many years have shown a reluctance to return. The answer to this problem lies in recruitment and teaching and I am always very encouraged to hear and read about the excellent work that is going on in many of our clubs both large and small.
Those clubs that are teaching and attracting new members are thriving and demonstrate what can be achieved by an enthusiastic committee. Now would be a good time for other clubs to ask themselves ‘How would we respond to someone who phoned us wanting to learn bridge?’ and consider becoming a teaching club in 2023. There is a great deal of help available from the EBU through our Club Development Officer Jonathan Lillycrop, and from our county associations, so I urge clubs to consider the long-term benefits of teaching bridge in 2023 and beyond and to get in touch with Jonathan or their county to find out what support is available.
Our friends and colleagues at EBED provide teacher training, as well as hosting Junior Teach-Ins and TD training. No club that wants to start teaching needs to re-invent the wheel: get in touch with us and we’ll see what we, or EBED, can do to help. Naturally, once new members start feeding through, then the problem becomes retaining them in the club. There are lectures to be given and screeds to be written on how to keep them once you’ve got them. But in the end it just boils down to two words: be nice. The main enemy is a hostile environment. If we can get rid of that, everything else will eventually, surely, follow.
Onwards!
By Ian Payn
February 8, 2023