FANTASTIC achievement by three of our novice players!  The Baden Wilson lists are published by NZCBA every quarter.  They contain the top 10 male and female players in every rank in New Zealand.  When you start playing bridge, before you clock up your first 500C points, you are an unranked player.  In the unranked listings in New Zealand, joint 2^nd on the male list and joint 2^nd on the female list, in the whole of New Zealand, are two of our players – many congratulation to PAUL TWEEDALE and PAM MANTON.  On the junior master rank list, female, joint 6^th in New Zealand, many congratulations to VICKI JACOBSEN. 

We have reached May, and have just opened our doors to the public for lessons again.  Anyone is welcome to attend these lessons.  If you would like to repeat them (it is amazing how much more you take in second time around!), or brush up on the bidding – please feel free to join in any lesson.  Just turn up – you will be extremely welcome.  If you want information on what is going to be taught at any particular lesson, please visit the Learner’s page on the club website or contact Clare Coles on 827 7331.

It was wonderful to see so many of you entering into the spirit of the Back to the Future Teams event.  Teams is a different way of playing bridge, is a lot of fun, and we hope you enjoyed the series.

The next five weeks will see the Junior Individual series being played out.  This is the most prestigious event on the Wednesday evening calendar.  It is the only one for which recognition is given by the name of the winner going onto the clubroom walls.  The rules of the game are strictly adhered to, the director called more often, and the event is generally more competitive than any of the other Wednesday events.  So do be aware of that.  Table talk is out and you must expect the director to be called to adjudicate on infringements.  Please don’t be upset by this or take it amiss … it is just that this competition is more serious than the others that take place over the year.

Also coming up is the club’s junior tournament.  On Saturday 5 May there will be two sessions of bridge, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  It is a great day, and a really good event to enter your first ever tournament.  So do think about giving it a go and sign up with your partner to play.