The National Congress is raging on in Hamilton as we speak: many of our clubs are represented in this the most prestigious event of the bridging year. One combination that is surely unique would be that of N Russell Thomson of the Waitomo club parterned by his son Hone of Huntly.
Russell and Hone Thomson
Hone has just completed Jane Stearn's NZB-based course of lessons for beginners at Huntly while Russell is one of just a handful that have attended every Congress since this event's inception in 1985.
Speaking of Huntly: the members experienced a couple of other life-changing events last week. They successfully completed their first night of Teams scored on their new Bridgemates AND they started to make use of the free results service offered to clubs in Waikato-Bays Region that do not have their own very flash web-publishing-with-full-drill-down-capability facility.
Whipping around the Region's websites (so easily accessible from our Home page here) we see that Cambridge is celebrating a National title - the first in 30years by one of its members. We checked whether Bruce and Merle Marr might not have achieved the like and Bruce informed us that he was a member of the combination that won the New Zealand Teams in 1985. They, too, have been regular attendees at all 31 Congresses even though they have lived in Australia these many years.
Oh man! - you gotta see this!!. Teams - Te Aroha STYLE!
Tauranga follows the fortunes of Sam and Jo Simpson who finished a most creditable fifth place in the New Zealand Pairs final. They made it through to the semi-final of the NZ Rubber, too, but fell at this penultimate fence. That was surely a LOT of bridge!
