sitemaster's blog

Spreading the JOY to all newbies over Christmas ... open access has been provided to the acclaimed MINI-MOOS package. Details of what it's all about may be seen under the Resources tab above (Mini-Moos item). Anyone is invited to use any of the material which is freely available in Dropbox. If clubs were willing to deal the boards for anyone keen to continue learning over the holidays, it would be way better than random deals to play the Mini Moos deals with guided commentary on bidding and play.

Anna Kalma will be wearing yet another hat in 2017, having taken up the mantle of Waikato Area Pairs Manager vacated by Jane Stearns. Although Jane set the bar amazingly high, Anna has made a great start with this whimsical poster of a Mr Wappy van.

A reminder to all who may not have spotted it yet, that this site features a Virtual Notice Board (the blue square to the right) upon which we try to maintain posters for all tournaments in the whole region. This becomes much easier if clubs save their posters in dropbox/Waikato-Bays Clubs Info/Tournament Posters to which all clubs should have access.

T'is the season of AGM's at many clubs around the region. The changing of the guard and much reshuffling of portfolios, etc - you know the drill. Elections at such events are rare these days; most clubs seeking to inveigle new blood onto their committees. And there's noting wrong with that - new blood often brings new ideas. There are many talented people amongst our learners - people with skills in a great many fields other than bridge. What do you need to know about bridge to help run a club? Not much, really, but exposure to the odd back-room questions of policy and administration can be valuable background to someone coming in fresh.

Trouble in NZ Bridge has been brewing these last few months. The trigger was a short passage in the minutes of the Board meeting of 14th of July and circulated on 30th of August. They included the following item:

The Infamous Resolution 65/2016

Rona presents Mark with Intermediate TrophyThe end of the week also coincided with the end of the Waikato-Bays Intermediate Champions League which was won this year by Mark Thomson of the Hamilton club. Pipping his year-long partner Jeffrey Chang by the two points he won (one for turning up, the other for over 50%) when Jeffrey couldn't make it to one of the nine events, Mark was gracious in his speech at the end of a hard day's bridge at the Cambridge rooms.

In third-equal place were Bruce Ballard and Hattie Curtiss of Katikati/Waihi. These four are also our Region's representatives at the Interprovincials to be held in Dunedin over the last weekend of this month. Good choice Waikato!