Nineteen and a half tables contested the Lawrence Shield on Saturday 2 June, commemorating the huge contributions made by Verl and John Lawrence. Most of us will know Verl, and know of her past role as Chief Director. Sue Riley was able to share her former life covering many of the key roles of the club including Secretary and Masterpoint Secretary. She also shared information about John, one of Sue's former bridge partners, and a long time House Manager for the club. It was a great opportunity to learn of the significant work that Verl and John had volunteered to undertake to help make the club as good as it is today.
On this wild, wet and windy Saturday we played as one field, using an Arrow-Switched Web Mitchell movement to ensure that we all played the same 27 boards, a fair outcome not always achieved in large fields.
The winners were David Farmer and Catherine Whiddon, with runners-up Peter Clarke and Jim Rothwell who finished ahead of Chis Duggin and Lori Neville.
A number of members have raised the ongoing car parking issues at the club, particularly for those who are mobility challenged. While there is no simple solution the committee has:
- Asked council to provide more mobility access parking spaces in the Nelson Heather Centre carpark and to restrict more of Boondah Rd parking to five hours (rather than all-day that suits B-Line commuters)
- Publicized the KEO-RIDE option for those living north of Narrabeen bridge that can help reduce the number of cars coming to the Club
- Progressed plans to spread our heaviest player (and thus parking) loads by adding additional rookie sections to other afternoon sessions and by trialing a morning session
- Created a Parking Working Group (led by committee member Greg Hay) to work on a wide range of measures to improve our parking experience
If you are interested in being involved in the Working Group please contact Greg on 0421 659 761 or
Of course any shared transport to the club such as car-pooling, or sharing a taxi or Uber, would also help the situation.
It currently seems likely we will reach a significant annual revenue milestone at the very beginning of next financial year, if not at the end of our current financial year. When "total revenue as recorded in the income and expenditure statement (i.e. gross receipts) for a financial year is more than $250,000 (excluding GST) or current assets are more than $500,000" we become a Tier 1 incorporated association - and this has some significant impacts on our financial and regulatory reporting requirements.
In brief we will need:
- To demonstrate our accounting practices align with relevant Australian Accounting Standards
- To have our financial statements and supporting records independently audited.
You can read about the Tier 1 status and accompanying requirements on the NSW Department of Fair Trading website.
To ensure we are prepared for this transition the Committee is moving to obtain an independent review of our accounting practices and related advice from an appropriate accounting and auditing firm in time to put any changes in place before the next financial year.
During April Annegrete and Marita entered a bridge competition and received a Bridge Shop voucher as winners! Fortunately for our library, they decided to donate the voucher to our Peninsula Bridge Library.
We have purchased 2 copies each of Demystifying Defense and A Second Book of Bridge Problems. Both publications are by Patrick O’Connor. These books will be of particular interest to those attending the Defence lessons this month. Look out for them at the library.
Thank you Annegrete and Marita.
In the third week of May the President spoke to members about where we were in our research into suitable premises options for when our current lease expires in April 2021, and about priorities the Committee had unanimously determined to ensure the club was in a financially better shape in order to increase confidence of achieving a good premises outcome.
The Committee has set a goal of extending our current reserves of about $350,000 to more than $500,000 when our lease expires in under three years, without compromising the quality of bridge that we enjoy. To achieve this our intent is to increase our normal annual increase in our reserves from its recent levels of around $10,000 to more like $40-50,000 each year by reviewing our costs and, if possible, identifying new income sources such as fundraising and sponsorship of events or other costs.
International players Liam Milne and Susan Humphries were our guest experts fpr our May Swiss Pairs. They led the PBI at 5 workshop on "When to respond 'light'", and then followed with a pre-session talk on guidelines when low-level doubles would logically be for penalties. The workshop was well received with a number of players from North Shore making the journey to hear them speak. It will be interesting to see how many light responses appear at the club.
The Swiss Pairs showed some interesting - read difficult - boards. The first board at our table had the following bidding: 4H (5D) 5H (6D) P P 6H X All pass - down one when 6D makes. In fact 7D makes when played by the other hand but fails on an unlikely spade lead and ruff. Needless to say Cath Whiddon and I were on the wrong side of this board playing against Susan and Liam.
Derrick Browne was our guest expert at the Swiss Pairs on 24 April. His pre-session talk on the "Power of the Closed Hand" was very well received, and a number of players were seen trying to practice the deception technique during the night. Join us for the next Swiss Pairs on 22 May when international players Liam Milne and Susan Humphries will be our guest experts. The pre-session talk will address how to distinguish the doubles partner intended as penalties from those intended as takeout.
The winners on the night were David Farmer and Catherine Whiddon, ahead of Peter Clarke and Hans van Weeren, and Marieta Borthwick and Annegrete Kolding.
Nine tables played on the night which was directed by in-house directors Alan Davies and David Farmer.
Members may not be aware of the KEORIDE transport option available for those living on the Northern Beaches north of Narrabeen.
This option was introduced as part of the B-Line service, and provides on-demand transport between your home and the nearest B-Line bus stop. There is of course a B-Line bus stop right outside the bridge club.
Member Julie Daniels writes:
