A Weekly Newsletter is sent out to members every Monday morning. If you are not receiving one, it could be because your email address is out of date, you have blocked it, you have opted out of bulk email or some other reason. Please let us know and we will attempt to remedy the situation.

Good morning

Membership subscriptions for 2025

A reminder that membership subscriptions for 2025 are now due. You can pay these to our Secretary, Jon Cooper, on Monday evening or Wednesday afternoon. In return, he will give you your membership card for the current year.

Membership and your data

The club shares your personal data with the EBU and with Bridgewebs. Each of these has their own Data Protection Policy. You can control the data they have about you by logging onto their websites, from where you can view and edit the data they hold. You can log onto both the EBU and Bridgewebs websites using your EBU number and a password. If you have forgotten your password, both allow you to reset it - but, for that to work, you have to have access to the email address they have on record for you. If you don't have access to that email address anymore, our Secretary (Jon Cooper) may be able change it for you; there are slips for this on the noticeboard. For your EBU account, this will depend on whether you have given the club permission to change the details for you; if not, the EBU has a page here detailing other ways that you may be able to reset your password.

Four key points from the AGM

You can find the official minutes of January's AGM in the "Meetings" section of the club website. Here are four key points:

1. Committee members for this year are: Tina Page (Chair); Jon Cooper (Secretary); Phil Batty (Treasurer); Cos Corry (LCBA representative); John Hill (General member - Monday nights); Helen Pickles (General member - Tuesday lessons); Peter Sturton (General member - Wednesday afternoons). For the first time in quite a while, we have a full Committee.

2. Membership subscriptions and table monies will remain at £12 and £3 respectively.

3. All of the minor changes to the Club's Constitution, which were put forward by the Committee prior to the meeting, were agreed (in order to bring it in line with current practice at the Club). A sub-committee is to be convened early this year to conduct a major review of the Club's Consitution.

4. A majority of those present voted against a motion for a Mitchell movement to be used in duplicate sessions with six or more tables. Nevertheless, Directors will continue to consider Mitchells, as well as Howells, when making their decisions about which movements to use for particular sessions - especially when a large number of sitting pairs is required.

At the the table: the Directors' Cut

This week, we are repeating our list of basic checks that you should be carrying out during a duplicate session. The reason for this is that we still had some of these not being done last week - resulting in, for example, a number of boards being played the wrong way round. Let's make this an error-free week with regard to these basic checks!

1. At the start of each round, the person sitting North should look at the Bridgemate and check that: (a) the correct people are sitting at the table; (b) they are sitting in the correct positions; (c) the right boards are being played; (d) the boards have been placed the right way round on the table. That person should then let everyone else at the table know that it is OK for them to take their cards out of board and look at them.

2. At the start of each hand, once North has given the OK, everyone sitting at the table should check that (a) the positioning of the board to be played agrees with the position you are sitting at the table; (b) you have 13 cards in your hand - before looking at the faces of the cards.

3. At the end of the play of each hand, before shuffling their cards and putting them back into the correct position of the board, everyone sitting at the table should check that they agree how many tricks Declarer has made.

4. Once North has finished entering the result for a hand into the Bridgemate, he/she should pass the Bridgemate to East (or West if appropriate) so that the details can be checked. At this point, East should check that: (a) the number of the board is correct (this is particularly important when the boards are being shared with another table); (b) the contract and position of Declarer has been correctly entered; (c) the result has been entered correctly. Only then should East press "Accept".

Last week at the club

There were four full tables at the Lindum on Monday evening. Well done to Alan & John who finished top again with 66.7%, and to Mike & Cos and Colin & Rose who came joint second with 61.1%.

At Bridge School in Saxilby on Tuesday, Improvers refreshed their knowledge, understanding and skills with regard to responding when their partner opens the bidding with one of a suit. Beginners have nearly completed their first module!

There were eight-and-a-half full tables at the Lindum on Wednesday afternoon. Well done to Alan & Graham who finished top with 69.2%, and to Chris & Ann who came second with 59.4%.

This week‘s calendar

Monday 10th February: normal duplicate session at the Lindum; please be seated by 6.20 pm, ready to start play at 6.30 pm.

Tuesday 11th February: Bridge School in Saxilby, starting at 4.15 pm; this week Improvers will be continuing to revise their responses to partner's one-of-a-suit openers and Beginners will be looking at how the scoring works.

Wednesday 12th February: normal duplicate session at the Lindum; please be seated by 1.05 pm, ready to start play at 1.15 pm.

Thursday 13th February: Bridge Practice online at 6.30 pm (please let Rob know by at least the day before if you will be able to join us).

County events

Forthcoming county events:

Sunday 23rd February - 9 High Pairs (12:00 noon at Dunholme Village Hall)

Please see the Lincolnshire Contract Bridge Association website for more details.