Akarana/Teams Group 2009
Welcome to 2009, and may the New Year bring you success in all your (bridge) ventures!
We have the usual full programme of Butler Pairs and Teams events throughout the year – see our Website for details. Please don’t forget to let Richard Solomon know as soon as possible of entries and late withdrawals or one-off absences.
There are several issues that your Committee would like to address as soon as possible during the course of the year:
- Scoring. This has proven a little unreliable recently, despite the heroic endeavours of our regular team of Tom and Nick Jacob. Related to this is the problem of allocation of master points. It would be far easier to have this automated and linked in with the scoring program, as is done at most other clubs. At present, Tony Morcom is doing this laboriously by hand. I hope to be able to report on this at our first evening.
- Trophies. A brief discussion of the possible utilisation of the large number of trophies in our possession was held towards the end of last year. It does seem appropriate to recognise successes in our major club series, and possibly also to accord some individual reward.
- Organisation. We still have not (in my view) resolved some issues of the management of our club evenings, including things like slow play, etc. This all comes down to the lack of a formal director, but by and large this works reasonably well on the basis of ad hoc rulings by one or other of our experienced members, etc. However, we may wish to institute some more formal responsibility for time-keeping in particular.
- Duty rota. During the past few years we have had a duty roster of people responsible for setting up and clearing away in both the playing area and the kitchen. My judgement of this is that the kitchen rota is of less value than that for the playing area, and that the latter has worked reasonably well apart from people forgetting their allocated slots. Fortunately, as always there have been a few people willing to do these very minor tasks even when it is not formally their responsibility. I would like to continue with the playing area roster, and I shall circulate a sheet asking for volunteers to do this. I shall also endeavour to get this roster on the website and remind people a few days before their allocated period begins.
Please let me or one of the Committee know of any other matters for consideration. My own preferred method of communication is email, douglas.russell@xtra.co.nz, and I shall be communicating with as many of you as possible during the year by this means. Please ensure that Lisa Jones (our super Webmaster, lisa.jones@xtra.co.nz) and/or Stephanie Jacob (our equally brilliant secretary, akaranabridge@gmail.com) have your latest email address(es).
Douglas Russell
President 2009