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3rd September 2020
New Online events have been recently added to the Calendar including a version of the Great Northern Pairs in October, together with a ‘9 High‘ pairs event.
An Online version of the popular Yorkshire League, this time for club teams of 4, will also run this Autumn over 4 Sundays between October and December.
25th August 2020
See our YCBA Chairman’s latest blog which includes details of new competitions and Club Chairs’ consultation plan.
The update can be found here , or via ‘About YCBA +‘ menu
25th August 2020
Once again, I find myself putting fingers on the keyboard to hopefully give you an update of what we, the YCBA committee, are doing on your behalf.
I am sure that you will have seen our President’s letter outlining what is happening with our flagship event, the Yorkshire League. Plans are in place to start again in January and whilst this seems a long way away, even now there is a doubt that this will be the case. In the light of this, the idea of a new inter club tournament came about and further details will be forthcoming about this exciting interim on-line opportunity for clubs to participate in. The format will be slightly different to the traditional Yorkshire League but we hope that you can generate your Club team(s) to enjoy this new competition.
We are always looking at new ideas for competitions and the feedback I have received so far, for those that we have held, has been very good. However, this does not stop us from entertaining ideas for new events and we are looking at all types of formats for the future, whilst on-line bridge remains the only game in town. If you would like more variants on stratified events, mixed, men’s, ladies’, swiss, teams, pairs etc. please let us know. The on-line game can be as sociable as you want it to be and yes, you cannot see people faces but the possibility of say adding Zoom feedbacks is one way of connecting with friends and opponents alike after an event.
Early on in lockdown, we contacted clubs to check on their ‘health and well- being’ and to also to get a handle on how many members were playing on-line. This not only proved popular with the clubs but gave the YCBA a valuable insight to all our clubs in this current climate. It is with this in mind and, similarly to the way that the EBU consults at County level, that I would like to invite all Chairs our YCBA Clubs to a meet with me on-line. The date has yet to be sorted and I appreciate that you may not all be able to attend but if you can have a representative there that would be great. Unfortunately, I do not have all the current e-mail addresses of the Club Chairs, so in the first instance if you can each contact me, so that I can get an invitation list together with possible dates, that would be great. Failing that, if possible, could the Club Secretaries please let me have their Chair’s details and I will contact them.
As I mentioned earlier, the events we have held have proved very popular and I would like to personally thank everyone who has been involved in creating and making these events really from scratch as it is as new to us as it may be to you. Especially but not exclusively, Lesley and Ron Millet, David Guild, Pauline Stout, Oliver Cowan, James Carpenter and Stuart Davies.
Please keep your eye on the website for future competitions that we will be running.
I hope you and your families keep well and safe and whilst the day of face to face bridge still seems a long way off, I hope you are enjoying your on-line bridge because enjoyment is the reason we play the game.
Nick Woolven (YCBA Chair)
29th July 2020
By popular request, our online ‘Play Without The Experts’ on 9th August is now accepting any player upto and including Jack NGS level who wishes to participate.
20th July 2020
Thanks go to the 27 YCBA members who joined the first YCBA AGM held online on Saturday 18th July, making the meeting quorate. Meeting minutes will be published under Official documents when available.
20th July 2020
It is with much sadness that we report that Keith passed away on 12 July following a number of years of failing health.
His bridge playing career spanned over 50 years playing his first knockout competition in 1969, following this he represented the county on many occasions including the 1995 Tollemache team. He was known for his unconventional but highly effective style of bidding and playing and whilst his partners may say he was not always easy to play with he was a much more difficult and formidable opponent at the bridge table.
Deepest sympathy is extended to his family, friends, bridge partners and the wider bridge community.
Full details of his tremendous contribution to York Bridge Club and funeral arrangements can be found of York Bridge Club’s website. here
28th June 2020
Dear Yorkshire Members,
Welcome to our redesigned website that is managed by our new webmaster, Andrew Pearson.
We are starting our website launch with more innovation; our first virtual AGM on 18 July and our virtual Swiss Teams on the same day.
So watch out for joining information on this website and for the exciting virtual competitions programme that we are scheduling for the rest of the year.
Best wishes
Nick Woolven
Chair YCBA
25th June 2020
Message from YCBA Chair
Hello everyone,
During this difficult time, it gives me great pleasure to be able to bring to you a major item of positive news, this being that we are to launch our newly designed YCBA website on the 1st July 2020.
It would be extremely remiss of me not to mention the superb work that has gone into our current website that has served us well for the last decade. Rob Turner was our webmaster from 1999 and in 2010 he worked with Lesley Blanchard to totally redesign our site into its present familiar green thematic. Subsequent work to administer, maintain and improve our site to present time has continued to be through the efforts of this volunteer team. Without their commitment to getting results/news/committee meetings/ calendar and numerous other activities that display on the website, all of us would be far less informed. Rob very sadly passed away last year and Lesley has since been steadfast in her solo effort to keep our website current. So, I am sure you would all like to join me in expressing our sincere thanks to both Rob and Lesley for all their hard work and dedication over the years.
We are launching our new 2020 design that is now written in WordPress, the most popular website builder software, which makes it easier to update the site and share the design workload. We have changed the order of the website and you may initially need to familiarise yourself with the new formats. We hope that you find it both accessible and user friendly and we welcome your comments and suggestions for further design improvement.
I hope you are keeping safe and well and let us look forward to the time when we can get back to ‘normal’, whatever that may look like!
Best wishes
Nick Woolven (YCBA Chair)
19 June 2020
12th June 2020
Dear Yorkshire Bridge Players,
First, I hope that you are all keeping well, not struggling too hard with isolation and enjoying some form of bridge. There is no great surprise that, in these unprecedented times, the YCBA have decided to cancel all competitions till the end of the season because even when lockdown gradually ends it will be unlikely that gatherings at bridge clubs will be allowed straight away. To this end, we have been investigating ways of encouraging players to get on- line (a lot of players have done this for themselves successfully) and have come up with idea of holding our first ever on- line county competition. The plan is to hold this sometime towards the end of May and make it a swiss pairs event lasting a month. There will be a small charge to cover the organisers time and administration, but I really hope you will make the effort to enter. It will be held on the BBO platform, which for some of you I know may be scary but there will be some clear instructions on what to do and also there is a plethora of information on how to join BBO (free) both on the EBU website and various club websites.
If you are daunted by this do not hesitate to contact anyone on the Board and they will be able to help you. Greater details of this new event will appear on the website later, so keep watching. Within this time, of course, we were due to have our congress and AGM at the beginning of June. This has now been put back until 18th July and the plan is to try and hold the AGM on a video platform (e.g Zoom) but again details will come out later. We may well ask for questions to be written in before the meeting to help facilitate it on the day but as this is of course as new to you as it is to me, final details have to be ironed out. However, it is also our plan to hold an on-line event after the AGM. At the moment this is looking like a one day teams’ event but again we would really encourage all of you to think about entering, even if you feel uncomfortable playing on- line. Again, more details to follow but put it in your diary!
The YCBA secretary will shortly be sending out a letter to all club secretaries for distribution to the club players, highlighting some of the details from above and what else the YCBA is trying to do to help clubs in these difficult times. When this is finally over and we can get back to playing what I call ‘real bridge’, it will be a very different environment and some clubs may struggle to get the numbers they once had. I hope not and that as a member of your club and indeed your county, you will go back to supporting your club to help them get over this crisis. Lastly, I hope you all remain safe and look forward to the future as a chance to renew old rivalries across the bridge table. Do not be afraid of trying on-line bridge in any of its guises and whilst it is no substitute for the real thing, it’s not that bad!
Best Wishes,
Nick Woolven (YCBA Chair)
7 May 2020
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