Barry's Blog 15

By now most of you who take the time to read my blog efforts will also have seen the Board's proposals for the future of the Union. I am delighted that many members have responded positively but, of course, some have not.

What I am going to try to do in this blog is to explain some facts, from my perspective, which is wider than most because I see things from both sides of life - as an EBU member and an EBU employee involved with the people who are determining the future policy of our 77 year old organisation.

As a member; I am on a good day an average club player; time permitting I play at a few different clubs. The major problems that I see are the behaviour of players and the ageing of the membership. At the ripe old age of 56 I am frequently one of the youngest people in the room. This is, I am often told by our members, because there are not enough young people entering the game. At the time of writing we have just 243 members under the age of 25 on our books, that is less than 1% of our membership.

So I ask why that is? I learned to play card games from my parents and grandparents. It was thus not a big stretch to learn the rudiments of bridge at a relatively young age. I did little with that for many years until I was no longer working, when doing something taxing with my brain became very important. I will pose a question to all of those parents and grandparents out there; how many of you have taught your offspring to play bridge or something similar? I was astonished to discover only recently that many (perhaps 30% of) EBU affiliated clubs proudly announce on our web site that junior players are "not welcome"!!!

As a manager and employee of the EBU; what does the EBU do to encourage new entrants to our game? The answer is, not enough. We just do not have the staff resources or the funds, so we are reliant, in the main, on volunteers. Guess what? Getting volunteers is not as easy as it used to be. There are some wonderful examples for us all; for example, Dave Bessant (who was recently presented with an EBU award) from the Isle of Wight has, totally as a volunteer, put bridge onto the curriculum for all schools on the Island. There are many others too, who do a great job in their local areas.

However, as the work is voluntary, and volunteers come and go, the results are patchy. What we need is more money so that we can spend it on developing our game for future generations. As things stand at present if you are under the age of 50 it is hard to see who you will have available to play against at a club in twenty years!

As an EBU employee, apart from my staff in Aylesbury, I work very closely with many people who give their time, for no remuneration, to carry out remarkable work for bridge. They spend time ensuring that competitions are provided, that the game in England is ruled well (yes, I know you will not all agree with that, please don't email me!), that Tournament Directors are trained; teachers are trained and so on. Some of these people work much longer hours than I do and receive nothing back for it - except frequent and ill informed criticism from a small minority of members who think they know better, yet only infrequently do these people offer constructive comments.

What the Board is attempting with its new strategic proposals is a root and branch change to the manner in which the EBU engages with its members and its clubs; in order to do that they have proposed that all members who play in EBU clubs will be EBU members. This is the way that the most successful bridge organisations in Europe work. They are all increasing their membership numbers - ours steadily decline year after year. The status quo is defunct.

If every player who currently plays at EBU affiliated clubs were to continue to do so, as an EBU member after the changes, it would mean that the EBU would have something like 75,000-90,000 members. At that level of membership it is highly likely that the additional table fee we are presently estimating would be very significantly less than 30 pence per session. Please remember this is not a major fund raising exercise. Extra revenue raised will be used for immediate investment in support of members, clubs, teachers and students; not for the payment of exotic expenses or bottles of wine - just for the development and promotion of bridge in England.

What I am asking every bridge player who plays in our clubs to do is to look beyond themselves and ask, "Can I help the future of this game that I enjoy so much?" If the answer is yes, then I beg you to consider the Board's proposal positively. If the answer is no, then I doubt there is much that I or the Board can say or do to change your mind. If you have some constructive comments to make this would be a great time to pass them on, so that the Board can consider them before it is too late.

Please, please, please "look to the future, or there will not be one"...

Barry's Blog 16

The last few weeks have been a time of huge interaction between members, clubs and counties of and in the English Bridge Union - due, of course, to the proposals for change put forward by the EBU in June.

This has been a very stressful time for me and others involved in responding to the very many requests for clarification and to the small, but vociferous, number of people who feel that it is necessary - for reasons I just cannot understand - to attack personally the motives and integrity of the people involved within the Union in this process.

These proposals for change come out of a process that was put into place in 2005, well before I arrived in Aylesbury to take up my position. During the time from 2005 until the proposals were made to the Union's Shareholders on June 6th, 2007 many people were involved in researching the wants and needs of members and clubs. Various clubs, up and down the country were visited to ascertain what they needed to grow; many people not connected directly to the Board of the Union participated in the many discussions that took place during that period.

This culminated in the proposals being placed before the membership in June. Please remember these are proposals; they are not being foisted upon the members without any opportunity to consult in the widest sense possible. Even though the consultation is only seven weeks old we have had numerous constructive suggestions for improving the proposals. The process of consulting Counties has now begun and we hope that by the AGM in October, or shortly afterwards, we will have had enough time to consult with everybody, absorb the suggestions for change and put the measure to a vote.

This brings me back to those people who feel it necessary to doubt the motives of those involved in the production of these proposals. I have rarely seen such bad mannered, ill-informed and potentially libellous statements as those made by some of these people. I wish I could publish the emails concerned; I know that most of you would be outraged.

Apart from me, as a paid employee and Company Secretary of the Union, all of those involved in the development, production and follow up on the proposals are volunteers, many of whom work as long hours as I do for the sake of the Union. These proposals may not be to everybody's liking, (although I must say that very many members have expressed that they are acceptable to them) but they were proposed for discussion and to engender a new culture for the EBU. It is necessary to bring the organisation into the 21st Century, to learn the lessons from those bridge organisations around the world that are so much more successful than we are, at all levels, and to elevate and maintain the game of bridge in England.

So, before another member suggests financial benefits for the Officers of the EBU being a motivation, before another member suggests that there is some hidden secret reason for these proposals, before another member writes an abusive email attacking the veracity of an individual, please remember that these are just PROPOSALS, proposals that have been made for the benefit of bridge in England and for no one's personal gain.

Indeed, we could all just let each day roll on, one after the other, as has happened for years with the EBU without consideration for the future. We could report at each successive AGM that the numbers are down again and return back to preside over another year of the same.

Or, and it is a big "or", we can listen to our members, act upon their wise comments when provided and then change the EBU for the better. No one is being "coerced" no one is blackmailing anybody. These are just two of the crimes that we are being accused of.

Listening to our members is the uncharted territory I would like us to conquer, not the previously uncharted territory of abuse that causes people such distress.