Chairman’s April 2021 update
Well, here we are in April with some beautiful weather and wondering how much has changed from this time last year. At least we have May 17th to look forward to in the first instance and then June 21st after that (assuming the government or the virus does not change anything in between!)
It is with this latter date in mind and with the potential to start face to face bridge that I would like to point you to this link:
https://www.ebu.co.uk/article/planning-face-face-bridge-2021
There is some good advice here, especially around the risk assessment documents that can be accessed very easily. For those of you that are planning to restart on or around the 21st June, I personally (and the county as a whole) would be very interested to hear how it goes and the feedback that you get from your members. So, if you could drop me a quick line about successes and difficulties that you have faced, it would be greatly appreciated.
Within the document there are also clubs that have looked at using different methods and I am sure they would not mind being contacted should you so wish to do.
It does seem highly likely that on-line bridge is here to stay and the future may be a hybrid of both this and face to face. As a county we are investigating how this may be achieved at club level but as you can imagine this may be quite complex with some playing at home and some at the club!
We have set up a committee to look at ways of helping clubs (especially the financially strapped but not exclusively) restart face to face bridge as we appreciate that there may be costs involved which will stretch the budget of some clubs. The exact remit of this committee has yet to be fully established but will operate in a similar manner to the ‘Technology’ one we had a couple of years ago.
There are now a lot of platforms offering on-line bridge and more and more of them have a video facility. This can cause a hindrance in terms of bandwidth on broadband or indeed screen sizing on smaller devices but at least give the opportunity for visual contact and discussion. Most of our county events have been run on BBO and great thanks go to Oliver Cowan for running a lot of these (together with his team of directors) but we will look to run future events on other platforms as all offer different things and of course come with different costs. BBO will be having a video link soon and this will add to the cost of events if we continue to use this platform but at the moment remains the choice for us.
The Yorkshire league on-line has proved to be stellar success and my thanks go to Mike Jackson, John Hayton and Robin Jepson for all the hard work that has gone on to get this running for two seasons (and soon to be a third). The face to face Yorkshire league fixtures are now on the website but of course these are only provisional the moment as we are not sure what the future holds and whether clubs (and their members) will want to participate. In an ideal world we would never have had the pandemic and things would carry on as normal but we appreciate that this will not be so. The teams of 8 league is really the crown jewel in our calendar and in the past was a great way to visit new clubs and make new acquaintances. The tournament committee will consider how we move forward with this event and will investigate new formats should that become necessary.
Just a quick reminder that the AGM will be held on-line at 11 a.m. on 12th June and details will follow nearer the time. This coincides with our Yorkshire congress and whilst there may not be the Harrogate sunshine to enjoy, there will be plenty of bridge for players of all standards, so I hope to ‘see’ you there.
Lastly, with the advent of on-line bridge, it has become difficult to keep tabs on successes that our members may have had in competitions far and wide. Whilst we will try to recognise success at a national level (or EBU run events) can I congratulate all those who may have experienced their first wins, wherever that may be.
