Dave's blog

Have you ever heard of the Settlement Centre Waikato ? Well the Club hadn't till recently when Jane Stearns came and asked your Club to assist her in teaching a group of 17 refugees and migrants. The course is run by the Settlement Centre and aims to help them integrate into NZ society and settle into the Hamilton & Waikato areas. The students on this course are a mixture of migrants and refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Colombia, Congo, Hong Kong, Korea, Pakistan and Cambodia and Jane, assisted by members of both the Hamilton & Cambridge Bridge Clubs, is teaching them to play bridge as part of this process.
To help these newcomers further the Club has waived membership fees and is looking at a special arrangement for their table money for a period while they adjust to their new country. If you would like to know more or possibly help talk to Jane Stearns, Mereanna Cullen or Phil Thompson

The club-rooms buzzed with quiet activity for six hours of bridge in the Ladies Day tournament held on Tuesday. In the Open division, congratulations go to joint winners - Judy McLeod and Judith Malcolm from Tauranga and Lesley Quilty and Kathy Yule, Matamata with both partnerships ending with a total 497 matchpoints.
Top Hamilton pair, Linda Lin and Gillian Corbett achieved 3rd place. Hamilton members Kay Dixon and Pam Halls featured as the Intermediate division winners with Margaret Boyd and Anne McCarthy achieving 3rd place. Jane Weir and Sue Collinge were the top Junior pair climbing up the ladder with an excellent afternoon score of 58.31%.

Special thanks go to Craigs Investment for their generous
sponsorship towards the prizes and raffles.

Ella

Our piggy bank is not a bottomless pit and unfortunately needs a "top up" from time to time

Your subs are a large part of the way this happens and were due by the end of March

There are unfortunately rather a high percentage of subs still outstanding so if you fit this category can you please pay......

Thanks

Found

This item is no longer sought - many thanks to Cynthia and Ian Clayton for the donation of a fridge to the Club

Wanted - ALIVE not DEAD

Your Club is looking for a pre-loved fridge for the kitchen. We need another large & clean fridge in good working order to make the life of those doing the catering easier. With the large numbers we get at our tournaments we have trouble storing the food prepared for those yummy meals we provide.....

So if you have an old but good fridge could you please donate it to the Club ( it would be really nice if we could install this prior to the Restricted Tournament April 15 ). Just let the committee or a director know if you have a suitable candidate

Bridge lessons for 2018 start next week and there has been a good response to the advertising, flyers etc. but even more learners would be better. The Club - which is all of us - really need the lessons to be successful so we can keep the Club running as it does now!
In a typical year the membership falls by around 10%, so without lessons and new members our current membership of approx. 300 is going to become a lot smaller and the remaining membership will be looking very sad due to their "subs" becoming unaffordable.
The song has not changed unfortunately with our income basically static and costs increasing - as an example the insurance bill has increased by over 400% to more than $7000 which is a very large ouch! We will collectively need to play a large number of bridge sessions to pay that one bill and it is as they say one of many.....

So that the Club will survive for a long time into the future our membership needs to grow so encourage your family, friends, work colleagues etc. to come along to the lessons next week ( if they can't make the lessons next week then the following week while not opportune will be okay )

Barry Jones is running the lessons this year - further info on the lessons and contact details can be found here

To help the "sales job" a nice little piece from the Hamilton Press talking to Barry & Jenny on bridge can be found here - show it to friends and family to hopefully interest them.....