The garden around the bridge club has had a make-over this weekend.
Margaret Boyd organised a working bee on Saturday to take out some trees, trim branches and shrubs as well as putting additional stones around the garden. The property looks neat and tidy after some extensive effort from a few members.
As well as thanking Margaret, I am grateful for the support and efforts of Mark Thomson, Paul and Yvonne Stevens, Malcolm and Alison Smith and Richard Wagstaff. Without the efforts of members our club rooms would not look as attractive.

A reminder about the Restricted Tournament on Sunday April 15th: if you are not intending to play, can you please volunteer for a couple of hours in the kitchen? Please let Nigel know if you are available. We really want this tournament to be a great success.

Nigel

Members will see the friendly face of Donna Prentice in the office from this coming week. Donna will start her new position as Club Secretary on Tuesday 23rd January. Donna started playing bridge at our club, a graduate of our 2016 year, coming through in that short time to be a regular Thursday night and Friday morning attendee. Donna’s main attributes - her very approachable manner and can-do attitude, means members will be very well served in all aspects of the administration of our club. I am sure all members will make Donna welcome in her new role, be helpful to her and understand that she will not know all the answers immediately, but she will solve any queries or problems you have.

Donna’s days in the office will be Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Friday morning (before the bridge session) and early afternoon.

Did you know that some of the blogs on the web site have more content that what is shown ?

This happens because front page space is precious and as different devices ( tablets, notebooks, desktops.... ) show differing amounts of the screen its difficult to decide how much of a story to display. So stories are often truncated on the screen

So if Read more is present click "Read more" and the complete story will be displayed. Happy reading......

August brought changes to the Laws of Bridge which will directly affect us as players.....

Thanks to the Tauranga Bridge Club here is a short summary of the 2017 Law changes pertaining to players

Here are key points for some of the changes -

Law 7: Board location - This law has been amended slightly to reinforce the fact that boards must remain in the centre of the table correctly orientated during play.

Law 9: Dummy - Dummy may now attempt to prevent an irregularity by any player. Dummy must not, however, ask a Defender if they have revoked or draw attention to an irregularity which has occurred, until play concludes, except for correction of a mistaken explanation by partner (Declarer).

On Labour weekend Monday Hamilton Bridge Club hosted the final of The Waikato-Bays New World Provincial Teams. The Ware Team consisting of Michael Ware, David Skipper, Ian Berrington & Grant Jarvis were the winners on the day having also been the top qualifiers on Sunday in a class field of 22 teams.
The tournament was sponsored by Chris Grace's company "Te Rapa New World". Chris is pictured here with Ian Berrington & Grant Jarvis - the other two members having departed to drop Christchurch visitors at Auckland Airport with the joys of Labour Weekend traffic to contend with !!

2nd place went to the Solomon Team - Richard Solomon, Gary Chen, David Dolbel & Denis Humphries followed in third by the Carter Team - Patrick Carter, Russell Wilson, Jenny Millington & Barry Jones