May 2023 newsletter highlights: WCBU AGM / Western Cape Pairs and Teams / Monthly Sunday Pairs and Lunch / Charity Bridge in aid of Hospices and Souper Troopers

As always, there's a lot of bridge activities coming up. More information on many of the topics in this newsletter can be found in the attachments to this E-mail; by clicking on the links in the text below; or by visiting the Western Cape Bridge Union (WCBU) website.

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the WCBU takes place at 11h00 on Saturday 10th June at the Green Point Bridge Centre and via Zoom (link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85961008717?pwd=OUFKUzRtUnJwbG1Tb1pwTmdtVUl1dz09). Since this is the first AGM held under the new constitution where voting, including for the new committee, is by individual members rather than by club representatives, we strongly urge players to attend. Stepping down from the committee are Jocelyn Ashberg, who has a long record of service to bridge in South Africa, Erix Marx, Adrian Mauerberger, Carol Stanton and Lara Woznica. Those attending the AGM in person will also, of course, be able to stay on and play in the afternoon tournament at the Bridge Centre.

The WCBU and Personal Trust invite players in the Cape Town area, including visitors, to participate in our May and June final Sunday of the month Pairs and Lunch events to be held at the Bridge Centre in Green Point on Sunday 28th May 2023 and Sunday 25th June starting at 10h00. The cost (inclusive of lunch and a glass of wine) is R100.00 per person. Contact Shirley Phillips ([email protected]) to enter or to assist you in finding a partner. Our next two monthly First Friday charity BBO tournaments take place at 09h30 on Friday 2nd June in aid of hospices and on Friday 7th July in aid of Souper Troopers, who work with and advocate for Cape Town's most marginalised residents, those living on the streets - just logon to BBO, select Virtual Clubs - South Africa and you will see our WCBU sessions listed. We look forward to seeing you at some or, better still, all of these events!  

Turning to major, mostly red-point, tournaments coming up, the Western Cape Pairs is scheduled to take place on 19th and 20th August, the Western Cape Teams on 30th September and 1st October and the rescheduled SAWBA online from 24th to 29th October. In the meantime you can warm up for those by playing in the KZN Mini Congress in Durban from 16th to 18th June or the Oyster Festival Pairs in Knysna on 17th and 18th June - unfortunately you can't play in both! Nearer the time you will be able to enter these tournaments via the SABF Online website. For avid golfing lady bridge players there is also the opportunity to play in Plett's Trump to Tee bridge and golf competition on 14th and 15th August (email entries to [email protected]). The African zonals are currently underway and you can go to https://kibitz.realbridge.online/#230522128303-lobby to kibitz or view the results.

Moving to ways of learning or improving your bridge, the next of leading bridge teacher Jeff Sapire's brief bridge tips: If something doesn’t add up on a hand (bidding or play), trust partner, not the opponents (unless you are 100% sure it’s partner who went wrong).

Now we bridge players like to think of ourselves as vastly superior to the average person in the street when it comes to solving complex problems and thinking ahead so here are a couple of somewhat different real life bridge problems to test that thesis. The cost of a return flight from Cape Town to Marrakech is R 21,400. The SABF has 1,900 members who each pay an annual sub of R 200. If each of South Africa's bridge teams - open, women's, mixed and senior's - qualified to go to the world championships in Marrakech, how many flights would the SABF be able to pay for out of subs?

"That's easy" do I hear you say, "even my seven year old genius grandchild could solve that problem!" So let's try something more challenging. During the decade pre-Covid the SABF had more than 3,000 members; in 2021 1,970; and at end 2022 1,785 members (these are all close but not exact numbers). If the SABF doubled the annual subs to R 400 per player and the EU introduced a 20% green levy on airfares, how many flights to the world bridge championships in Helsinki in 2026 could the SABF pay for out of that year's subs? This is a tricky problem even for genius grandparents. We don't really know why SABF membership is dropping off - deaths, the advent of international, 24 hour a day online bridge, a greater focus on how we spend our money or a move to unaffiliated clubs whose members don't pay the SABF subs that send teams overseas? And will doubling subs cause an acceleration of the decline or have no significant effect?

These two - essentially existential - problems face bridge administrators from national to club level around the world. If we want to continue winning on the traditional, face to face (no that's not quite correct, there are screens on the tables) international bridge stage, we need to have an active pipeline of new players coming into our clubs where they pay their subs and grow their skills. And the SABF and unions have to provide real, tangible benefits to non-elite bridge players so the non-affiliated feel compelled to affiliate. Those are the challenges we all hope bridge administrators are taking care of as we casually play the next hand of cards but really it is incumbent on all of us to come forward with ideas and actions to turn things around so that, in five or ten years time, there is still a vibrant bridge playing community we can enjoy belonging to. To paraphrase the famous words of President John F Kennedy's speechwriter, "think not what the bridge administrators can do for me, but what I can do for the bridge community." Those of you living in the Western Cape could start by bringing your ideas to the WCBU AGM in a couple of weeks time. In the meantime we administrators have to resort to depleting financial reserves, begging for sponsorship or taking a chance on the Lotto to bridge the budget gaps.

Moving on to some numbers that don't require us to think so hard, in the past two months the results from more than 398 tables (down from 502 largely because of Congress) of face to face and online bridge have been recorded in the Pianola database on the WCBU website where players can compare and analyse their performance while also giving them the opportunity to compare their results in the two formats. Since the beginning of January 2023, the WCBU website has been used by 2,471 visitors who read 16,169 pages of information during 7,746 visits. Of the visitors, who live in 48 different countries, 86% reside in South Africa, 4% in the United Kingdom, 2% in America, and 1.5% in Australia; 37% live in Cape Town, 29% in Gauteng and 2% in Hermanus. As you would expect, the home page was the most popular page in April, followed by the results, Bridge Clubs, Congress, Bridge Lessons and Upcoming pages. Some 44% of visitors use a computer; 44% use a cell-phone; and 11% a tablet. And that's enough statistics for this month!