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Dear Jan ..

... & the Waikato Bays Regional Committee,
Just a wee note to say – thank you so much for sponsoring me to Congress this year.
I really appreciated the opportunity to participate in the Intermediate Pairs, Teams & Swiss Pairs. It was an amazing experience, & inspiring to participate in such challenging card-play.

Dust Settles After Congress 2017

For anyone who didn't already know it, the 32nd annual New Zealand Bridge Congress has just finished in Hamilton. Reporting of this country's biggest event is well-covered on the NZB website and Facebook so we shall restrict ourselves to singing the praises of Lauren Lehndorf of Taupo (left in the photo) who was one of the ones that Waikato Bays Region sponsored to Congress. She is standing next to her partner Christine Knowles (eyes closed - must have been a hard week) who is also a junior from Taupo, and their team-mates who are the pair that Richard Solomon matched them up with for the teams.

Best Team with three or more Juniors in the Intermediate Teams Lauren Lehndorf / Christine Knowles / Tonni Keijzer / Charmaine Churches (all Juniors).

WB Regional Conference

The annual Waikato-Bays Regional Conference took place at the Matamata rooms on Sunday 24th September. A goodly turn-out of representatives from 13 of the 22 clubs in the region was present with apologies from two more. We had several presentations, mostly geared at ways to maintain and increase participation in our wonderful game:

Anna Kalma reviewed the State of the Nation comparing our region to the wider NZ Bridge population. In summary:

Inaugural TWITs a great success

On Friday 22 Sep we enjoyed our final round of The Waikato Interclub Teams more fondly known as TWITs.

New Tournament Entry Procedure

We're moving to a new model of streamlined tournament entry. Your committee encourages everyone to make their entries for mostly all tournaments on the NZ Bridge site. The only exceptions would be certain special events played at various centres - eg the Babich NZ-Wide Simultaneous Pairs - which may require entry on the host club websites.

Items from the Skype meeting of WBRC on Friday 1st September

Details of the agenda are settled for the upcoming Regional Conference at Matamata on the 24th of September. The full poster may be downloaded by clicking here.

Sponsorship to Congress
The secretary received 12 self-nominations and 1 club nomination for WBRC sponsorship to attend the National Congress at the end of the month. A random draw was made and the lucky winners are:

  • Sharon Barton (Taupo)
  • Tim Rigter (Te Aroha)
  • Lauren Lehndorf (Taupo)

The sponsorship, which is on offer every year, is to the value of $200 per player in entry fees.

WB Rubber Bridge Winners
Repeating last year's success, Jo and Sam Simpson of the Tauranga Club won the Waikato-Bays Rubber competition and will be representing us in the National Play Off during Congress.

Monthly Numbers Survey

Aug 2015 to Sep 2017Aug 2015 to Sep 2017For over two years your correspondent has been tracking the number of NZB-registered players as at the first of each month. By clicking on the orange Numbers block on the right side of our Home page you may see this series of screenshots. They each show breakdowns by region over the last four seasons. Here is a summary of the national totals over two years.

WB Grade Teams Sorted

A relaxed and happy day was had by all twelve teams contesting the Final of the Grade Teams at the Cambridge club. The attending teams were the two best-performed in each grade at the Ib Thulin Trophy (Bay-of-Plenty clubs) and the Waikato Inter-Club Teams event both held some time ago. To break the suspense of not knowing, click here for the summary results or go to the full detail on either this or the Cambridge site under the Results tab for proof that we have one and a half of the best club teams on THIS side of The Hill!!

Tune in to The Crowd Goes Wild at 7pm on Prime tonight!

Remember - bridge is a sport! So bridge will be featuring....somehow..... in relation to our Bridge Blacks playing for 3rd or 4th place in the Bermuda Bowl in Lyon. Tune in to The Crowd Goes Wild at 7pm on Prime tonight!

Bridge Blacks in Play-Off for Bronze at Lyon

Our amazing Open team the Bridge Blacks are challenging for the bronze medal in the Bermuda Bowl in Lyon, France. The matches will be live on BridgeBaseOnline on Thursday night 9pm, 12.30am and 3.20am and then Friday night 9pm and 12.30am. Five 16 board matches. Please let your club members know of this opportunity to tune in and watch their team in action.

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