Bal l ina Bridge Club Newsletter — Dec 2015

Current Office

Holders

__________________

President

Rebecca Rogers

Vice President

Chris McDowell

Secretary

Sue Burns

Assistant Secretary

Judy Woodward

Treasurer

Judy Peiti

Assistant Treasurer

Helen Pearce

Masterpoint Secretary

Bill Powell

Chair of Play

Judy Forsyth

Committee Members

Chery McCallum

Maureen Baker

Lorraine Byrant

Maintenance

Elizabeth Fletcher

From our President

Birthday Milestone

Congratulations to Anne BIGG who recently celebrated her 80th birthday at

the Club.

Play Committee Report

Results

Ballina Swiss Teams Congress

1st Open Janet BROWN, Lady ASKEW, Bill

POWELL, Eric HURLEY

2nd Open Helen & Peter TOOTELL, Liz JEFFERY,

Judith CRAFTI

1st Rest Rebecca & John ROGERS, Charlotte &

John HARRISON

UHMP The local Final was hotly contested with 12 pairs.

The AM & PM winners were Jenny & Chris McDOWELL.

We await the combined State results with anticipation.

Ballina BC Pairs Champions

1st Open Liz & Howard JEFFERY

2nd Open Helen & Peter TOOTELL

1st B Grade Terry LOWE, Ngaire WILLS

2nd B Grade Anne RILEY, Betty CLARK

1st Rest Charlotte HARRISON, Di JAMES

2nd Rest Peter FORSYTH, Russell BURFORD

National GNOT

Eric, Janet, Bill & Marjorie represented the Region at the National GNOT. What a credit to themselves & Ballina/Lennox Bridge Clubs for their result. The competition is a knockout event, starting with 64 teams. By Round 4 there were just 8 teams remaining with “our” team to play Sydney 1 who had members of the like of Ron Klinger who went on to win the entire competition. To their added credit, they were awarded medals for winning Country

Team & were placed 7th overall.

Event Organiser – You will hear this term more often. A member of the Play Committee will assume this role for all major events from now. They may wish to have the assistance of a Convenor. However, the person to turn to

with questions/problems etc will be the Event Organiser.

Brown Sticker Conventions – Will NO longer be permitted at any level of club play. If this is in your system, please

adjust your systems card/bidding within Ballina BC.

Thanks Bill – Many thanks to Bill Powell for all the computer work he puts in to sort the annual programme book. This is a huge consolidation process after Play Meetings and very much appreciated. Thanks also to our secretaries, Sue & Judy, who have sorted the phone number

changes on computer ready for Bill.

If, like me, you have been concerned about the

visibility of oncoming traffic when exiting our

parking area onto North Creek Road, then I can

tell you that at our last management meeting we

resolved to send a letter to the Traffic

Committee of Ballina Council. One day I had to

go out onto the road to see if anything was

coming so that one of our less mobile members

could drive out safely. So, we have taken some

photographs of vehicles parked on our side of the

road and the opposite side. Sometimes this makes

the road space quite narrow when turning in as

well as going out. We await council’s response to

our suggestions.

Our Directors will be on duty right up to and

including Thursday Christmas Eve and then back

on our usual Saturday session on Boxing Day.

Our club has always kept bridge sessions going as

normal right through the Christmas/New Year

season.

Might as well start the New Year as we mean to

go on...................enjoying our cards and the

company of others!

Rebecca

Please support

our sponsors

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Page 2

We recently returned from a trip to My-anmar with the Captains Choice group. The country is about three-quarters the size of New South Wales but with a popu-lation of about 53 million. There are a few modern cities and many very poor villages. Yangon (Rangoon), Mandalay and the new capital of Naypytaw are the big centres of population but there are many small villag-es and rural communities. The people are very friendly and are trying to promote and improve their country. The main cen-tres had lots of visiting tourists but there

were quite few outside the bigger cities.

We began our trip at the Inle Lake Prin-cess Resort which can apparently be reached only by boat. Inle Lake is a huge but very shallow stretch of water with houses, restaurants, weaving factories and whole villages built on bamboo piles sunk into the lake bed. We were lucky to be there at the time of a boat festival where 20 or so long, narrow and highly decorat-ed boats, each powered by a big team of young oarsmen all standing up and using one arm and one leg to row. They were escorting a huge and highly decorated golden barge containing Buddha images. Going in single file, they traversed the lake for some 20 kms and then had individual races between smaller groups. All this was observed by a flotilla of small craft includ-ing several of our group, with 5 or so peo-ple in each and with thousands of specta-tors on shore watching it all at the finish-

ing point.

We then spent a lot of our time (about 11 days) on a new and quite luxurious boat on the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) River, go-ing ashore to see a few sights. On a full moon night we went ashore to a sandbank and followed the custom of sending simple candlelit kites high into the air, accompa-nied with fireworks and nearby loud chant-ing. Then on the river that night, thou-sands of small floating candles were launched by local people and they could be seen for a long, long way as they floated down river. This festival again was a cele-

bration of the life of Buddha. The Burmese use the lunar calendar to mark religious days at the full moon and "dark moon" times, giving a similar number of religious days as the Sundays of the Christian religion. It seemed as though the whole country was covered with gold-covered pagodas and temples and we defy anyone to count the number of statues of Buddha which ranged in size from about one foot to 30 feet high. The huge Shwedagon pagoda complex in

Yangon was unbelievable in its scale.

Overall our visit was worthwhile though the time on the river boat was too long and 5 days or so would have been better as the scenery and the numerous small villages had little variation. Also there were no jetties or piers anywhere and once off the gangway there were only the often steep sandy banks of the river to climb up and down and only

dirt roads to go on.

No bridge playing was seen anywhere so it

was a real holiday break!!

Anne and David Fraser

October/November 2015

A visit to Myanmar

It’s all in the timing…….

Br idge Lessons in 2016

After an initial lead passive lead of a ♥ for example, declarer should play 2 rounds of ♠ and then a low ♥ to the A. At this point, play a ♦ to the King. If this holds, play another ♦. When declarer regains the lead, strip ♥

and exit a ♠. This will leave the following distribution:

Teams of Three Monday, 14th December.

Monthly Evening Teams - For 2016 we will no longer

have Thursday Evening Pairs bridge due to lack of num-

bers. However, we have added a monthly Evening Teams

on the first Thursday of each month. All questions should

be directed to the Event Organiser, Eric Hurley. Add

your pair names to the red sheet on the Noticeboard by

the 6th January for the first team event on the 7th Janu-

ary. Start is 7pm. You will be drawn with another pair.

Up-coming Events

New Bridge lessons will commence on Tuesday,

2nd February 2016.

Lessons are given each Tuesday and Friday morning

from 9 am till 11 am for 8 weeks.

New players will then join in Supervised play held

each Friday from 9 am till 11.30 am.

Please let interested friends know the details. The

cost is $60 per person. For more details, please

contact either Anne BIGG (6686 2374) or Lyn

GRAHAM (6686 8417).

70% c lub

Congratulations to Peter FORSYTH (L) and Russell

BURFORD who scored 71.13% in the Restricted

Championships, Thursday 12th November.

This interesting and difficult hand came up in the recent Teams Championships, 22 Nov 2015. Most pairs will reach 4♠ but on initial analysis, it’s clear that the con-tract will be defeated if the ♣ suit is not managed well.

(Declarer must keep their ♣ losers to 1 as a ♦ and ♠ loser cannot be avoided). One way to increase your chances is an end play on West.

With West on lead, they are forced with 2 unpleasant options. The first is exiting a ♦, which gives declarer a slough (discarding a ♣) and a ruff. The second is to lead from Q 8 of ♣ which allows declarer to lose only 1 ♣. NB, if West exits the Q, this MUST be ducked otherwise declarer themselves are forced to lead A J into K 10 of ♣.

Ballina Bridge Club 2015 Awards

People’s Choice Award

Once again, Henry HIRSCHORN took out the (unofficial) People’s Choice Award for Best

Dressed for this racy and exciting ensemble.

Dorothy BRUMLEY (L) presenting Charlotte

HARRISON with the Brumley Award.

Rebecca ROGERS (L) presenting Charlotte HARRISON with the award for winning the Restricted

Pairs (Di JAMES absent)

Rebecca ROGERS (L) presenting Betty CLARK with the award for runners up in the B Grade Pairs

(Anne RILEY absent)

Winners of the Open Pairs Championship, Liz

and Howard JEFFERY.

Runners up of the Open Pairs Championship, Peter and Helen TOOTELL (Recent photo taken

from Tenterfield Pairs)

Winners of the Restricted Pairs Championship, Ngaire WILLS and Terry

LOWE

Rebecca ROGERS presenting Peter FORSYTH (L) and Russell BURFORD with the award for runners up in the Restricted

pairs championship.

Rebecca ROGERS presenting Maureen BAKER (L) and Liz JEFFERY with the award for winners of the Women’s Harvey

Norman Pairs.

Rebecca ROGERS presenting Jack PIERCE and Gary LYNN (absent) with the award for winners of the Men’s Harvey

Norman Pairs.

Howard JEFFERY and Lady ASKEW receiving their award for winning the Mixed Pairs of the Harvey Norman

Pairs.

Judy FORSYTH (Chair of Play Committee) presenting Rebecca & John ROGERS with the award for winning the Restricted section of the

Harvey Norman Pairs.

Rebecca ROGERS (L) presenting the Jenny and Chris McDOWELL with the award for winning the Restricted Teams (Ray GHIONI

and Damian KENNEDY absent)

Runners up in the Open Teams, from L, Howard and Liz JEFFERY, Eileen

and Jack PIERCE.

Winners of the Open Teams Championship for 2015, Lady ASKEW, Bill POWELL (absent), Eric HURLEY and Janet BROWN

(absent)

Ballina Bridge Club 2015 Awards

Ballina Teams Championships 2015

Contributions and feedback for the newsletter are always welcome. For enquiries or to submit material for upcoming edi-

tions, please contact Winston on 0416 065 910 or email to: winstonguymer@gmail.com

The newsletter is published monthly and copies are available on the BBC web-site:

http://www.users.on.net/~bbclub/index.html

Contributions to the newsletter

Winners of the 2015 Ballina Teams Championship, from L, Lady

ASKEW, Janet BROWN, Eric HURLEY, Bill POWELL.

Winners of the 2015 Ballina Teams Championship (Restricted)

from L, John ROGERS, Charlotte HARRISON, Augustus (Team

Mascot and NPC), Rebecca ROGERS, John HARRISON.

Hol iday Break

The last day for SUPERVISED PLAY will be Friday,

11th December 2015.

After a 3 week break, play will resume on Friday, 8th

January 2016.

Have a great Christmas and New Year.

Thanks

Anne BIGG

The teachers at the Club have worked very hard

this year introducing over 20 new people to this

wonderful and frustrating game of Bridge. After

the lessons, the hard yards begin as we attempt to

integrate these new players into our Club. The

teachers organise supervised play on Friday morn-

ings (which incidentally adds a little to the clubs

coffers!) but we do need all members’ assistance

as these new players extend their play to other

days.

Please treat them gently - no great gasps of "You

can't do that!" or "You must do this!". Sure, they

will be slow or sometimes they will confuse the

situation with their bids or leads. Tough!

We are known as the Friendly Club and have a

great reputation as such. Could all members

please make a New Year’s Resolution to be really

friendly and courteous to these players. From

their ranks will come the workers to help the

Club grow in the future.

Thanks in anticipation, Lyn Graham

Letters

Thanks

As this year closes and another begins, I just wanted to take the oppor-

tunity of wishing everyone a safe and festive season. I also wanted to

thank all those who generously contributed to the newsletter. They are

too numerous to mention but particular thanks go to those who put reg-

ular updates in such as Judy Forsyth, Ngaire Wills and Rebecca Rogers. A

particular thanks is owed to Charlotte and John Harrison who very gen-

erously volunteer their time and expertise to proof read each newsletter.

Thanks to all and I look forward to continuing our collaboration in 2016.

Winston