Face to face bridge continues at Holy Trinity on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Start time is 1:30pm so please be seated by 1:20pm. There will be normally be a tea break at some point. Refreshments are available from the church hall canteen in return for a donation .

 As most of you probably know by now, the rooms at Northdown House are no longer available to us. To enable us to re-start face to face bridge, we have taken a month by month lease on the Botany room at Holy Trinity Community Centre, opposite Northdown House. We have initially taken it for Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 1-5pm, playing from 1:30-4:30pm. Please be seated by 1:20pm at the latest.

  

 The room at Holy Trinity is upstairs, but there is a lift, parking is available and there are toilets, including a disabled toilet, just outside the room. We will have to get equipment out of storage before a session and put it away afterwards, so any help with this would be appreciated. It is unlikely we will be able to use our own tables for play, due to storage space problems, but there are smaller square tables in the room that we will try out at least initially. Room on each table will be quite tight. We will not be able offer tea and coffee in the room but you can bring your own refreshments or they will be available at the cafe downstairs at no cost to bridge players. If you obtain tea or coffee at the cafe you must remain there to drink it.

Please note, we will continue to run the online games for as long as there is demand.

We want everyone to be able to carry on playing bridge with their regular partner despite the Corona virus. Now that the Government has told bridge clubs and the like not to meet we can use online bridge to enable people to continue playing. 

From tonight the EBU is organising national games online for those who cannot go to their local club but it is also possible if people want it to organise club events online where you play with your regular partner against the same people with whom you play at the club every week on the same afternoons as the present club sessions.

However the prerequisite for any of this to happen is for members to acquire a 'Bridge Base Online' (BBO) Username. We are asking members to do this ASAP. BBO is the largest online bridge platform and is the one Broadstairs use with robots to avoid sit-outs. You can play on BBO on a computer, a tablet or a smartphone. For Apple devices you can go to the App Store and search for 'Bridge Base Online' and download the App. Similarly for all other phones and tablets you can find the App in Play Store. On a Windows laptop or desktop you do not need to download anything simply Google (other search engines are available) 'Bridge Base Online' and click on the link.

In all these routes the first screen to which you come will ask you to Log In or to become a member for free. You can take this second option which will allow you to create your own Username. You are limited to 10 characters but it can be whatever you want so long as someone else has not already taken it. Your password can also be something simple of your own choice there are not complicated restrictions as there are with sites involving monetary transactions. Once you have done this you will be able to Log In and join the EBU or the club games when they start. However you will see that there are already lots of games there for you to play. In amongst the 'Public Clubs' there is even an Acol Club but first of all you might want to try some of the 'Solitaire' games where you just play with 3 robots so you can become familiar with how you bid and play a card.

When you are ready to join in with the Club online please enter one of our events by clicking Online Entries, the second item in the main menu.

In order to set up games just for club members we need to know what your BBO Username is. If you have one already or when you acquire one please fill in the form below and click 'Send details to the club' just once so that we have a record of it.