ContractBridge.net

Introduction

Message from Bruce Owen, Te Awamutu Bridge Club member and administrator of ContractBridge.Net.

Following the development of our Te Awamutu Bridge club website in New Zealand in 2002, I had many comments from other clubs that they would love to have this sort of resource, but didn’t know how or feared it would be too expensive. This led to discussions with my son David who owns a small media and web design company.

Non New Zealand Costs

The costs quoted here are in NZ dollars incl governement taxes. Tax free costs for other currencies equate approximately to US$130 for the website and $US7 per month for hosting.

For up-to-date rates, see our sister website's currency converter.

As a result, we developed ContractBridge.Net, a service which offers bridge clubs anywhere a website with your own content and details for as little as NZ$200 + GST(12.5%). In addition we would host the site for $180 + GST per year. Assuming you use a contractbridge.net URL (as below), you do not have to pay any annual domain fees. Domain fees are usually around $NZ45 per year.

Features include:

Simple URL, eg. www.contractbridge.net/yourclub
Club email address, eg. yourclub@contractbridge.net, forwarded to your nominated email address.
Completely free of advertising - the content is 100% yours to control.
Pre-made templates for your website, specially designed for bridge clubs.
Online results pages with easy "copy & paste" management.
Contact details (optional contact form for an extra fee).
Newsletters and notices.
Photos, stories, articles, etc.

As long as your scoring programme allows for copying and pasting of the results, this is all that is needed to allow your members to access results from the comfort of home. Your club computer does not even have to be connected to the internet. As long as you can copy the results onto a floppy disc you can upload them to the site at home.
N.B. For users of the NZCBA programme, the results can be copied by going to Print Preview and copying with Control-C. Compass users can choose the "View Results in Notepad Format" at the top of the results screen and copying. In both cases the results can then be copied directly into the webpage.

You can also add whatever you want to the site up to 10 MB. Our own site, including 23 photos currently uses only 1 MB.

Initial assistance/training can be given. Online help files are available, as is a support discussion forum.

This is the way the world is going, and an increasing percentage of new bridge players are on line! Have a look at our site - you could have this kind of resource with surprisingly little cost or training.

Regards,
Bruce Owen
Te Awamutu Bridge Club Member