This year has been one of change as has become usual over the last few years. We said goodbye to Sally Bugden as Chairman for the past five years and hello to our new Chairman, Jeremy Dhondy. Earlier in 2013 we implemented our new web site, based upon a very comprehensive content management system, which seems to be working very well. We don't believe it is perfect (yet), but it is a great improvement on what we had before, and we will continue to tweak it during the forthcoming year.
One major change just implemented is the way we deal with members' passwords. When we started the "members area", we chose to maintain members' passwords in a form that we can all understand. This was a "follow-on" from the way our previous computer system did things and also so we could provide as much help as humanly possible to people who are not very computer literate. However, as the cyber world seems totally obsessed with obtaining personal information via the internet we have decided that we need to "hash" our passwords so that they cannot be intercepted. (N.B. "Hashing" is like encryption, but is one way only). We do understand that the average cyber crook is not hugely concerned whether or not you got more than 50% in last night's game or whether you earned twenty or thirty master points. What they want is your password, as many people (wrongly) use the same password for many different web sites. This change means that we will no longer be able to assist members who forget or lose their passwords. Instead, there is an email mechanism which automates the password replacement process. If you do not wish to divulge your email address to us you must use an anonymous email facility (we will provide guidance) or a friends email; otherwise your members area will not be accessible to you. For those that worry about these things, if you provide us with your email address but do not want to receive emails from us, you can set an appropriate indicator in your own members area. It is worth noting that your current password, as far as you are concerned, remains unchanged.
Another change coming soon, is an addition to NGS that will allow us to grade some team games, Multiple Teams to start, and Swiss Teams when we get the changes we need to Bridgemate software. Full details of the changes will be made available when we are ready to launch.
Those of you who play in EBU events will know that we have started to use Pianola to report our own tournament results. We will be deepening our integration with Pianola during the next twelve months to improve our results service further.
One of the most gratifying things that we have seen in 2013 is the relatively high growth of new and returning clubs. We have a net growth of 14 clubs so far this year, with another starting their re-affiliation to us in January, and with more clubs working through the process as well and likely to join next year.
During this year we have also increased our online presence, with new EBU licensed games taking place on BBO and full master point awards. We have also been running a trial "online" knockout competition to get people used to that way of playing and we hope that this may encourage teams in the more remote parts of the country to participate in knockout events, which they may not do now because of the expense and time required in travelling. Full details of these games may be found on our web site.
This year has also seen us publish English Bridge online, which is slowly being used by our members. During the next year we hope to extend the online presence of the magazine by making it available on various tablet devices. We have also started archiving some of our oldest papers and magazines, so that we can save these items for posterity, and at the same time make them accessible in a manner that has not previously been the case. The eagle eyed among you may have seen a few of our oldest available magazines are now available to be read online - more will come in the next twelve months.
With the holiday season almost upon us, on behalf of all of my staff, I would like to wish you a great holiday season and a Happy New Year!
Showing posts with label barry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barry. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Monday, 28 October 2013
Blog 61 - Not been on for a while...
Like most organisations, changes happen from time to time. In ours, we have just gone through a change of Chairman and Vice Chairman and we in Aylesbury are getting used to a different set of “bosses”. All pretty well known to us though, so not too difficult for either side, I hope!
I would like to address the very unfortunate delay in the delivery of our diaries. We ordered our diaries in very good time for delivery with the October magazine, at roughly the middle of September. During the journey from China the ship had an on board fire – something that no person can predict. Fortunately, no one on the ship nor our diaries were hurt or damaged, and after repairs the ship arrived in the UK in early October, well after the magazines were delivered. Clearly, this was an unwanted problem for us, and very unsatisfactory for those of our members who use the EBU diary heavily. We considered sending the diaries out directly to members, but the cost would have been hugely prohibitive. Each diary, packed in an envelope that would prevent damage to the diary, would have cost £1.10 per diary, plus staff costs. With well over 40,000 being delivered it is easy arithmetic to see why this was a non starter. Although lightning rarely strikes twice, we are taking action to attempt to prevent any delays next year. The diaries will be delivered to us a month earlier.
As a footnote, we purchased our diaries from Collins-Debden, one of the largest providers of diaries in the UK. They have their own company in China and the vast majority of their diaries are printed there.
We have just about reached the point where we will be switching off our old website for good. We are also working on ensuring that we have an electronic archive of our results, as far back as we can. Alert members will have noted that we have added more very old EBU publications to the web site, something that we will be continuing to do into the future. As many of you will be aware, we are now providing access to the latest magazines as well, but only via your member’s area. We are also investigating allowing the magazine to be downloaded to tablets, such as the IPAD and Nexus 7.
We have some good news on the affiliation front; this year has seen a number of clubs join for the first time or rejoin since they left prior to Universal Membership. We are hoping for a few more in the near future as well.
Peter Stockdale, our new Communications Officer started a few weeks ago and he is always anxious to help with publicity if it is in our power to do so. He can be contacted by email at peter.stockdale@ebu.co.uk.
I would like to address the very unfortunate delay in the delivery of our diaries. We ordered our diaries in very good time for delivery with the October magazine, at roughly the middle of September. During the journey from China the ship had an on board fire – something that no person can predict. Fortunately, no one on the ship nor our diaries were hurt or damaged, and after repairs the ship arrived in the UK in early October, well after the magazines were delivered. Clearly, this was an unwanted problem for us, and very unsatisfactory for those of our members who use the EBU diary heavily. We considered sending the diaries out directly to members, but the cost would have been hugely prohibitive. Each diary, packed in an envelope that would prevent damage to the diary, would have cost £1.10 per diary, plus staff costs. With well over 40,000 being delivered it is easy arithmetic to see why this was a non starter. Although lightning rarely strikes twice, we are taking action to attempt to prevent any delays next year. The diaries will be delivered to us a month earlier.
As a footnote, we purchased our diaries from Collins-Debden, one of the largest providers of diaries in the UK. They have their own company in China and the vast majority of their diaries are printed there.
We have just about reached the point where we will be switching off our old website for good. We are also working on ensuring that we have an electronic archive of our results, as far back as we can. Alert members will have noted that we have added more very old EBU publications to the web site, something that we will be continuing to do into the future. As many of you will be aware, we are now providing access to the latest magazines as well, but only via your member’s area. We are also investigating allowing the magazine to be downloaded to tablets, such as the IPAD and Nexus 7.
We have some good news on the affiliation front; this year has seen a number of clubs join for the first time or rejoin since they left prior to Universal Membership. We are hoping for a few more in the near future as well.
Peter Stockdale, our new Communications Officer started a few weeks ago and he is always anxious to help with publicity if it is in our power to do so. He can be contacted by email at peter.stockdale@ebu.co.uk.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
Blog 60 - A new website (yes, at last)
I am pleased to say that after a long wait, and a lot of work, our new website will be hitting the streets fairly soon.
The new site has been designed using a content management system, called DRUPAL (www.drupal.org) for those that want to know. This type of facility places updating more in the hands of the people that are best able to deal with the detail.
You will notice quite a lot of changes, especially in how the screen is organised. We have carried across some of the more modern aspects, including the members area, but there are many other very welcome changes, especially with searching, which will actually deliver meaningful search results now!
Once the new web pages are made live the full migration will still take a considerable time, as we have very many pages of information to migrate from our current web site, and even a previous iteration. We will provide links direct from our new website to the old one, but access will continue to be via the usual URL - www.ebu.co.uk.
It is likely that we will have some errors, particularly with broken links; if you find any please let us know, NOT by telephone, but by sending an email to webmaster@ebu.co.uk. If a link is broken and your enquiry is urgent, I would suggest that you simply link to the old website from the link on the home page of the new one.
Please be patient, migrating a website is a very long winded process, which we will do as quickly and efficiently as possible. Keep a look out on this website (the old one) for notice of the exact date we will change over!
The new site has been designed using a content management system, called DRUPAL (www.drupal.org) for those that want to know. This type of facility places updating more in the hands of the people that are best able to deal with the detail.
You will notice quite a lot of changes, especially in how the screen is organised. We have carried across some of the more modern aspects, including the members area, but there are many other very welcome changes, especially with searching, which will actually deliver meaningful search results now!
Once the new web pages are made live the full migration will still take a considerable time, as we have very many pages of information to migrate from our current web site, and even a previous iteration. We will provide links direct from our new website to the old one, but access will continue to be via the usual URL - www.ebu.co.uk.
It is likely that we will have some errors, particularly with broken links; if you find any please let us know, NOT by telephone, but by sending an email to webmaster@ebu.co.uk. If a link is broken and your enquiry is urgent, I would suggest that you simply link to the old website from the link on the home page of the new one.
Please be patient, migrating a website is a very long winded process, which we will do as quickly and efficiently as possible. Keep a look out on this website (the old one) for notice of the exact date we will change over!
Monday, 11 March 2013
Blog 59 - Another NGS Update
A while ago I updated you on some changes that we were going to make. As the time is now approaching a further update is worthwhile, especially as we have added something additional. After three years of grading sessions for the National Grading System, a number of changes are being introduced at the beginning of April this year.
The most significant is that the maximum number of boards used to calculate your grade will increase from 1000 to 2000 (around 80 typical sessions). This will reduce the effect that any single session has on your grade and will mean that your grade will have smaller fluctuations.
Green pointed events, and other EBU or national events, currently are weighted triple compared to other events of the same number of boards. Since these events typically mix players from different clubs and areas, the extra weight helps the standardization of grades across the whole of the EBU, very important in the early years of NGS. It is now appropriate to reduce this extra weight from triple to double. All other events will have the normal single weighting.
The NGS has always intended to include only events that took place within the last three years in calculating your grade. Since the first graded events were in April 2010, these old events will start to be excluded from your grade from April 2013 even if you have played less than 2000 boards in the last three years.
Your grade will continue to be regarded as "Mature" if you have played over 1000 boards in the last three years and "Evolving" if you have played between 300 and 999 boards in the period. If you have played fewer than 300 graded boards in the last three years, your tentative grade is not published.
The additional change mentioned above concerns the 15% of EBU members who play as a pair nearly all their graded games with each other. We are adding a mechanism to pull the grades of such pairs closer to each other. This is a gradual mechanism which will take typically another 2000 boards to have a significant effect, so don't expect any sudden change. It will have no effect on you unless you and your regular partner have both played over 85% of the boards contributing to your grades with each other.
For more details on these changes, we will add to the NGS FAQ on the website and to the 'further reading' document in the next few weeks.
The most significant is that the maximum number of boards used to calculate your grade will increase from 1000 to 2000 (around 80 typical sessions). This will reduce the effect that any single session has on your grade and will mean that your grade will have smaller fluctuations.
Green pointed events, and other EBU or national events, currently are weighted triple compared to other events of the same number of boards. Since these events typically mix players from different clubs and areas, the extra weight helps the standardization of grades across the whole of the EBU, very important in the early years of NGS. It is now appropriate to reduce this extra weight from triple to double. All other events will have the normal single weighting.
The NGS has always intended to include only events that took place within the last three years in calculating your grade. Since the first graded events were in April 2010, these old events will start to be excluded from your grade from April 2013 even if you have played less than 2000 boards in the last three years.
Your grade will continue to be regarded as "Mature" if you have played over 1000 boards in the last three years and "Evolving" if you have played between 300 and 999 boards in the period. If you have played fewer than 300 graded boards in the last three years, your tentative grade is not published.
The additional change mentioned above concerns the 15% of EBU members who play as a pair nearly all their graded games with each other. We are adding a mechanism to pull the grades of such pairs closer to each other. This is a gradual mechanism which will take typically another 2000 boards to have a significant effect, so don't expect any sudden change. It will have no effect on you unless you and your regular partner have both played over 85% of the boards contributing to your grades with each other.
For more details on these changes, we will add to the NGS FAQ on the website and to the 'further reading' document in the next few weeks.
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Blog 58 - Good things are happening!
It is almost three years since Universal Membership for EBU clubs came into force - April 1st 2010 will forever be etched into my brain...
One of the principal reasons for UM was to reinvigorate our bridge clubs and this, by all accounts, is happening in many places. There are more people playing club bridge than there were in the year 2010-2011; indeed the numbers have gone up each year. This we know for sure, as we now have a growing and comprehensive database of all games played at our clubs and our various events, whether at county or national level. We will soon have details about league games as well, especially when the results are submitted using our League Management System, which came into use for the current "league season".
This past few months has seen a number clubs either return to affiliation or become affiliated for the first time and we are delighted to welcome the following clubs -
During the past couple of years we have trained well over 200 club based teachers and loads of club tournament directors, taking advantage of the development schemes we have in place for our affiliated clubs.
Our regional and national club committees are now firmly established and they are getting involved and consulted about the policies and development of our clubs.
So please make the most of your affiliation, and if you are reading this and your club isn't affiliated, please get in touch with Andrew Urbanski our Club Liaison Officer (andrew@ebu.co.uk) who will be able to take you through all the benefits including security for your club players through our regulation and mediation services, corporate governance assistance through our model club constitution and many great offers and discounts at the EBU shop – providing all you need to play bridge and more.
A lot has changed since this all started!
One of the principal reasons for UM was to reinvigorate our bridge clubs and this, by all accounts, is happening in many places. There are more people playing club bridge than there were in the year 2010-2011; indeed the numbers have gone up each year. This we know for sure, as we now have a growing and comprehensive database of all games played at our clubs and our various events, whether at county or national level. We will soon have details about league games as well, especially when the results are submitted using our League Management System, which came into use for the current "league season".
This past few months has seen a number clubs either return to affiliation or become affiliated for the first time and we are delighted to welcome the following clubs -
- Manchester University affiliated 25/09/1012
- Thistleworth Lawn Tennis BC 11/10/2012
- Rugby BC 16/11/2012
- 10CC BC 18/12/2012
- Haslemere and Grayswood 01/04/2013 ( i.e. in the new year commencing from April 1st)
During the past couple of years we have trained well over 200 club based teachers and loads of club tournament directors, taking advantage of the development schemes we have in place for our affiliated clubs.
Our regional and national club committees are now firmly established and they are getting involved and consulted about the policies and development of our clubs.
So please make the most of your affiliation, and if you are reading this and your club isn't affiliated, please get in touch with Andrew Urbanski our Club Liaison Officer (andrew@ebu.co.uk) who will be able to take you through all the benefits including security for your club players through our regulation and mediation services, corporate governance assistance through our model club constitution and many great offers and discounts at the EBU shop – providing all you need to play bridge and more.
A lot has changed since this all started!
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Blog 57– Catch up…and Seasons Greetings
After nine months of the “live” National Grading System, we will be making some changes in 2013. A number of people had commented that the NGS grades were “too volatile”. In fact, the volatility is there for a reason – that is to help even out the grades across the whole EBU, using a process we call “diffusion”.
The NGS team have now discussed how things are going and have decided that from April 2013 we will make changes to the NGS calculations as follows:-
1. We will increase the maximum boards used in the calculation of a grade to 2000 and leave the NGS “gain factor” at 2 for the time being, so that we can see the effect of these reductions to variability before committing to gain = 1.5. This will roughly halve the effect one session has on a player’s current grade, and decreases the rate at which older results are discounted.
2. There will be a one-off effect for all players, when NGS first recalculates a grade based on the new maximum number of boards. This effect should be relatively small and may be either up or down. Sessions over three years old will be excluded from the calculations, as has been planned from the outset of NGS. Players’ grades will continue to be regarded as mature once they have played 1000 graded boards. These changes will also be applied to partnership grades.
3. We will reduce the weighting of Green Pointed and other EBU events even if not Green Pointed from triple weight to double weight. All other events will be weighted normally. This will not affect events which have been already graded. NGS will of course continue to take account of the (usually high) strength of opponents in such events.
4. New players’ grades will be set at 42 – this has already been implemented.
We are still considering how we can include some team games within the NGS grading structure and hopefully we can do something about this during the next year.
I am also pleased to say that Scorebridge and PairsScorer, our two most commonly used club scoring programs, are now just about ready to utilise up to date NGS grades for handicapping. If you want to use this new facility I suggest you contact them as you will need to update your software. If you use any other scoring program and the author wishes to include the same facilities, please contact our office for details.
Other matters; many of you will be as pleased to hear (as we are) that we have started work on a brand new website. We are using a well known “content management system” to build the new facility and this will make many things much easier, including searching the site. It will be at least March 2013 before this sees the light of day, and even then it will not be complete as we have tens of thousands of pages of data to consider importing to the new site, which is a far from trivial exercise.
We are delighted that we have recently welcomed back Rugby Bridge Club into the ranks of our club affiliates and that there are two or three more in various stages of rejoining the EBU. During the last couple of years we have trained over 800 club tournament directors and well over 200 club teachers and the number of “player sessions” being played in our clubs is continuing to increase, which is a very healthy sign for the future of our game. Our club “re-invigoration” programme seems to be working!
With Christmas and the New Year bearing down upon us fast I would like to wish everybody the very best seasons greeting and a Happy New Year. At the same time I would like to thank all of our volunteers for the amazing amount of work that they put into our game at all levels and especially thank my staff for another very hard years work.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Blog 50 - Technical update...
Just a quick message to advise members that a revised "members area" is now live.
Especially good news is that we once again have the facility for members who wish to play in our tournaments to enter online. For the time being we are using PayPal, which is an internationally recognised way of making payments to suppliers. It is NOT necessary to have a PayPal account to use it, as the facility will accept credit cards in the normal way.
The new members facilities will also allow us to make further progress in the implementation of the National Grading System. There will be further details of the NGS and how it will work in due course.
You can see a brief video about how to make online bookings below, or jump in by going to the members area.
Especially good news is that we once again have the facility for members who wish to play in our tournaments to enter online. For the time being we are using PayPal, which is an internationally recognised way of making payments to suppliers. It is NOT necessary to have a PayPal account to use it, as the facility will accept credit cards in the normal way.
The new members facilities will also allow us to make further progress in the implementation of the National Grading System. There will be further details of the NGS and how it will work in due course.
You can see a brief video about how to make online bookings below, or jump in by going to the members area.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Blog 49 - Happy Birthday to us!
Happy Birthday to us!
The English Bridge Union has been around now for 75 years; there are only a few national bridge organizations around the world that are older.
A few weeks ago I was reading some obituaries of a few of the EBU’s illustrious bridge administrators and early elder statesmen. It is very clear to see how tirelessly these great bridge players worked to set up our Union in those early days. In the minutes of the 12 June 1936 it is possible to see names that now adorn our competitions, such as Lederer and Phillips, as well as seeing the immense detail they covered to set up a national organization, in those days without any technological assistance.
Over the last few years, the organization has gone through many changes – most notably when we changed to Universal Membership last year. It has been a challenging but fulfilling time to be involved in the administration of a venerable institution such as ours.
We are working on a few ideas to involve the membership in our Anniversary celebration year and I hope that as many of you as possible will join in.
I would like to wish all of our members, volunteers and staff a happy 75th Birthday.
Have a look at our special 75th Anniversary area, here.
The English Bridge Union has been around now for 75 years; there are only a few national bridge organizations around the world that are older.
A few weeks ago I was reading some obituaries of a few of the EBU’s illustrious bridge administrators and early elder statesmen. It is very clear to see how tirelessly these great bridge players worked to set up our Union in those early days. In the minutes of the 12 June 1936 it is possible to see names that now adorn our competitions, such as Lederer and Phillips, as well as seeing the immense detail they covered to set up a national organization, in those days without any technological assistance.
Over the last few years, the organization has gone through many changes – most notably when we changed to Universal Membership last year. It has been a challenging but fulfilling time to be involved in the administration of a venerable institution such as ours.
We are working on a few ideas to involve the membership in our Anniversary celebration year and I hope that as many of you as possible will join in.
I would like to wish all of our members, volunteers and staff a happy 75th Birthday.
Have a look at our special 75th Anniversary area, here.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Blog 48 - Money well spent...
I thought you might be interested in a few developments.
The EBU created a charitable trust (The EBU Youth and Education Trust) a few years ago. The initial funding was increased when we were fortunate to receive a substantial three year donation from the Milton Damerel Trust which we used for an agreed project, which is the teaching of Minibridge to school teachers and their pupils, predominantly in primary schools.
This has been in progress now for well over two years and during that time we have trained many hundreds of teachers and pupils in the game of Minibridge and have made some headway in convincing education experts of the many benefits of using bridge as a method of making mathematics fun to teach as well as assisting the social development of young people. You may recall the front cover of our February edition of English Bridge which showed some young pupils from Tunbridge Wells outside the Palace of Westminster, before they went inside to play members of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Bridge.
History will record, although sadly not Hansard, that the youngsters won.
While this project continues we are also working, at the other end of the age spectrum, on getting some further evidence on the benefits of bridge playing for older people, especially in the area of warding off dementia. We have a very dedicated volunteer working hard with members of the medical and academic communities to enhance the knowledge that we have already gathered, which has proved sufficient to allow the Charity Commission to allow charitable status to the first bridge club in England, the Hitchin bridge Club.
I think it will be of interest to reproduce some words from the Charity Commission:-
"Bridge is regarded as a game involving a high degree of mental skill, being one of the components in the World Mind Games. Bridge involves logical and lateral thinking skills, planning, memory, sequencing, initiating and other high order functions and therefore, we are satisfied that it is a game which involves mental skill or exertion which, if played regularly, is a game capable of promoting health.
In reaching our conclusion that bridge is a sport or game which promotes health by involving skill or exertion, we looked at a body of research. That research identified the potential health benefits of playing bridge, and other forms of mental activity, among seniors in lowering the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and other dementia by as much as 75%, compared to those who did not exercise their minds".
We are naturally delighted that the level of academic evidence has reached this stage but we believe that more evidence will allow us to further develop the argument that bridge is a healthy and beneficial pastime from (almost) cradle to grave.
Thus the EBU is working hard not only for the future of the game in England but also for the future health of our ageing population.
If you are interested in making a donation to the English Bridge Union Youth and Education Trust please contact the Trust at our Aylesbury office, or visit our dedicated page.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Blog 47 - National Grading System
After very significant background work by the NGS working party and testing of software written by one of them, I am pleased that we are now very close to being able to put the system into live use, probably by the middle of the year. We still have work to do in determining how to present the information at various different levels.
We have tested the software with real data from that collected via the Pay to Play process and once we are ready to go live, we will do some more testing with a few clubs, so that they can check the outputs from the system and make sure that they make sense!
If you are interested, please contact me at the first instance (barry@ebu.co.uk) . We are only looking for a few clubs, so it will be very much on a first come first served basis for trialling the software. There will be no impact at club level and no extra work to do, other than to check the results of grade changes to make sure they make sense.
As ever, the EBU would like to record their thanks to the efforts of its volunteers on the working group: Barrie Partridge, Paul Bond, Mike Christie, Peter Lee, Anthony Moon, Paul Habershon and Andy Kittridge. We must especially not forget the contributions of the late Dr John Carter and John Probst, who continues to recover from a stroke.
We have tested the software with real data from that collected via the Pay to Play process and once we are ready to go live, we will do some more testing with a few clubs, so that they can check the outputs from the system and make sure that they make sense!
If you are interested, please contact me at the first instance (barry@ebu.co.uk) . We are only looking for a few clubs, so it will be very much on a first come first served basis for trialling the software. There will be no impact at club level and no extra work to do, other than to check the results of grade changes to make sure they make sense.
As ever, the EBU would like to record their thanks to the efforts of its volunteers on the working group: Barrie Partridge, Paul Bond, Mike Christie, Peter Lee, Anthony Moon, Paul Habershon and Andy Kittridge. We must especially not forget the contributions of the late Dr John Carter and John Probst, who continues to recover from a stroke.
Friday, 10 December 2010
Blog 46 - End of year progress report!
As we approach the year end it is time to take stock of what has been a year of momentous changes for the English Bridge Union.
The era of Universal Membership started less than nine months ago. The changes for us all at our Aylesbury headquarters have been very substantial and we have got this far with minimal disruption to our clubs and our members. There are a few areas where we could have done better and we are working hard to make the necessary changes to improve our services to everybody and to deliver the best possible services to our membership. All of our staff have worked incredibly hard to undertake theses changes and are still doing so; I thank them for their past efforts and for what is still to come.
In the next couple of months we will be introducing our brand new stratified game results to our clubs that wish to use this new facility. The final round of testing is under way at the present time at about a dozen clubs and I would hope to be able to release the software for more general use in January.
At the same time the testing of the National Grading Scheme is taking place and I also hope to provide a substantial news release on this exciting new facility early in the new year.
Due to the very generous donations received by our Youth and Education Trust our programme of introducing bridge into schools with minibridge continues apace and with growing success.
Most of what I have mentioned relies on incredible efforts from many volunteers at all levels; without this input from our volunteers we could not be doing much of what we are doing today and we are very grateful for what they do for us all.
Finally, in these turbulent and difficult times, on behalf of all of my staff and myself, I would like to wish the very best seasonal greetings to all of our members and the very best wishes for a happy and healthy 2011.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Blog 45 - Update on NGS and Stratification
National Grading System
I am pleased to say that our volunteers are busy working on a "proof of concept" test of the NGS, using test data obtained from our P2P files. While we are still some distance from completing the project, if the tests prove that we are going in the right direction (things are looking positive!) we will be a lot closer to completion of the NGS project.
Barry
I am pleased to say that our volunteers are busy working on a "proof of concept" test of the NGS, using test data obtained from our P2P files. While we are still some distance from completing the project, if the tests prove that we are going in the right direction (things are looking positive!) we will be a lot closer to completion of the NGS project.
Stratification
Further testing of these changes is now being carried out by a couple of clubs using Scorebridge. If they are happy with what has been developed and tested so far then a further dozen or so clubs who have offered themselves for "beta" testing will get a chance to test the changes. Once we have passed that test we will advise other scoring software developers of what they will need to do in order to add stratification into their programs.
I would hope that we will have reached this stage by the end of November.
We propose to write an article describing how Stratification for our Clubs will operate so please do not send in lots of emails asking how just yet! One thing to note at this point is that using Stratification at your club will be totally optional.
Barry
Friday, 4 June 2010
Blog 44 - Master Point Updates
[May 25th: Update - Full Master Point detail now available in your own members area - login to see it]
Many of you are very interested in how the new master point process works, so I thought I would inform you about how the system works now we have Pay to Play up and running.
From Clubs:-
The scoring files from club games are sent to us, preferably immediately after the game, but often not until much later. These files are processed and then the session detail is associated with each members membership record and every member can (after logging in to their personal members area from the EBU home page) see the basic result detail for their session including any master points they have won. However, at this point the master point records are not updated to the members main totals. There a few reasons for this but the main one is that we need to allow time for scores to be adjusted as errors are found and corrected, something that happens frequently. We therefore wait until a week or two into the next month before updating the members actual record.
So any member can see and verify what they have won as soon as their club has submitted their files to us and be certain that they will eventually find their way into their totals.
From County Events:-
These arrive at the EBU office in different ways. Some submit in the same way as clubs and the same process as above is followed. This is by far our preferred route. Some counties are submitting the "old way" which is still direct update but this requires human intervention and is far less slick as a solution and these do NOT appear on the session records in the members area. They will, of course, appear on your Master Point record when we update them in the month following the county event
From Licensed events:-
We are currently receiving these in lots of different ways but will, later this year, be providing a similar service as for clubs for all licensed events.
From Simultaneous Events:-
We have made arrangements with the ECATSBRIDGE organisers for them to provide the EBU with an electronic notification of the points won in the overall ranking list. It is essential that the organisers are provided with your EBU number as otherwise your points will be "lost" as there is no alternative solution available. These points WILL NOT appear in your session record. However, please remember that points won at the club heat of an event will be awarded in the usual way.
Finally, we are aware that there are some changes that people would like in this area and we are working to do these as soon as we can. Some of these changes require ancient software to be modified and it is thus proving a little difficult to achieve, but we will get things done as soon as we can.
Many of you are very interested in how the new master point process works, so I thought I would inform you about how the system works now we have Pay to Play up and running.
From Clubs:-
The scoring files from club games are sent to us, preferably immediately after the game, but often not until much later. These files are processed and then the session detail is associated with each members membership record and every member can (after logging in to their personal members area from the EBU home page) see the basic result detail for their session including any master points they have won. However, at this point the master point records are not updated to the members main totals. There a few reasons for this but the main one is that we need to allow time for scores to be adjusted as errors are found and corrected, something that happens frequently. We therefore wait until a week or two into the next month before updating the members actual record.
So any member can see and verify what they have won as soon as their club has submitted their files to us and be certain that they will eventually find their way into their totals.
From County Events:-
These arrive at the EBU office in different ways. Some submit in the same way as clubs and the same process as above is followed. This is by far our preferred route. Some counties are submitting the "old way" which is still direct update but this requires human intervention and is far less slick as a solution and these do NOT appear on the session records in the members area. They will, of course, appear on your Master Point record when we update them in the month following the county event
From Licensed events:-
We are currently receiving these in lots of different ways but will, later this year, be providing a similar service as for clubs for all licensed events.
From Simultaneous Events:-
We have made arrangements with the ECATSBRIDGE organisers for them to provide the EBU with an electronic notification of the points won in the overall ranking list. It is essential that the organisers are provided with your EBU number as otherwise your points will be "lost" as there is no alternative solution available. These points WILL NOT appear in your session record. However, please remember that points won at the club heat of an event will be awarded in the usual way.
Finally, we are aware that there are some changes that people would like in this area and we are working to do these as soon as we can. Some of these changes require ancient software to be modified and it is thus proving a little difficult to achieve, but we will get things done as soon as we can.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Blog #43 - Progress report
With Pay to Play processing almost four weeks old I thought it was time for a short update.
At the time of writing, around 560 clubs have completed their membership data upload to us in Aylesbury and are now able to submit their result files as they happen. I would like to thank all of those volunteers who have spent a great deal of effort getting this job done; the good news is that it will never need to be done again, plus we will always have an up to date membership database for you to utilise as required.
We have now received over 3000 result submission files; almost all of these have gone through without any issues at all and any issues that we have had have been very small. We have received some suggestions for improving the process which we will consider and implement where and when we can.
Once again, thanks for the hard work and your patience.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Blog 42 - Phew off we go...
So after a lot of talk, an unbelievable number of emails, a great deal of hard work by my staff and our incredible volunteers, at all levels, April 1st is the start of the Universal Membership era for the EBU.
At the time of writing we are still awaiting membership data from about 60 clubs who have signed up for affiliation, while we still wait for a decision as to their future from around 30 clubs. This clearly means that we will start the P2P process on April 1st with some clubs not quite ready to go....however we will work with those clubs to get them in a position to catch up - it should not be a problem.
We owe a huge "thank you" to the countless club volunteers who have worked with us to collect the membership data over the last few months. It is (or was) an onerous "one off" requirement; once complete it does mean that the EBU database will be of major use and benefit for clubs for maintaining their membership data. Also, thanks to so many of you for helping us with testing our processes before we go live; your help has been of great importance.
I am sure that many of you have been sitting on a plane waiting to take off and that we have all made rude statements to our travelling companions when the pilot comes on to explain the one hour delay and says "thank you for your patience", as if you have a choice! Well, I am going to ask for your patience in advance. We are embarking on something very new, for all of us, and changing the habits formed over many years. We are almost bound to have made some trivial mistakes in the process, normally because we have no idea that "such and such" does that particular thing - I have already come across my weekly allowance of such things this week and it is just Tuesday!
I hope that those of you who have a need to interact with our computer systems will see and feel that we have made strenuous efforts to make things easy. Once we get going we will be reviewing what we do and how we do it as well as reviewing the whole P2P process so that we can improve on it in year 2, where possible.
Some of you may be wondering what is happening to the "National Grading System". It is still our intention to deliver the NGS as soon as we can. Unfortunately this has been substantially delayed due to the illness and recent unfortunate passing of Dr John Carter, who had been leading this project since it started. He is a hard act to follow but we intend to fill the gap as soon as we can and move forwards. In any event, we always needed a considerable amount of "real data" in order to verify the mathematics that will lie behind the NGS and this will now be provided and available when we are ready to progress.
A reminder about receiving the EBU magazine, English Bridge. Our new members will receive their first magazine in June, as the advanced schedule of printing and distribution meant that we will not have had your details available to us for the April issue, which has already been delivered. All members will receive the June, August and October issues, which includes the EBU diary with the August issue. Thereafter magazine entitlement will follow the rules laid down in this document available on the EBU website - http://www.ebu.co.uk/pay2play/magazine%20points.pdf.
I must thank a number of people and groups for helping us get this far:-
Stephen Bligh (Scorebridge Owner/Author) for a serious amount of work he has contributed, in helping us with the data collection from most of our clubs and in making the necessary changes to his program which is used by the vast majority of our clubs.
Jeff Smith, who has also helped us along the right path with his advice and guidance and also his scoring software (which is extensively used by the EBU for our events).
Chris Stableford (until recently, Chairman of Surrey County) who authored a very comprehensive file structure for use in Bridge Administration (for the nerds among us it is called USEBIO XML), which we have used in our software development.
To the EBU Clubs and their members who have decided to go forward with the EBU into the future, mostly with great patience and understanding, all of which you will need to continue to demonstrate!
My staff in general at our Aylesbury office for coming to terms with a massive change in their working life, answering a serious number of questions posed by our members on the phone and by thousands of emails answered.
Finally to Michael Clark, who is our IT man and the person who has designed and written all of the software that will be in use after April 1st. His quiet, thoughtful way of doing his job has got us to where we are with a minimum of fuss and apparent bother. I know he has lots of other ideas that he will work on in the future, once we are past this watershed moment of "going live" with Universal Membership via Pay to Play.
At the time of writing we are still awaiting membership data from about 60 clubs who have signed up for affiliation, while we still wait for a decision as to their future from around 30 clubs. This clearly means that we will start the P2P process on April 1st with some clubs not quite ready to go....however we will work with those clubs to get them in a position to catch up - it should not be a problem.
We owe a huge "thank you" to the countless club volunteers who have worked with us to collect the membership data over the last few months. It is (or was) an onerous "one off" requirement; once complete it does mean that the EBU database will be of major use and benefit for clubs for maintaining their membership data. Also, thanks to so many of you for helping us with testing our processes before we go live; your help has been of great importance.
I am sure that many of you have been sitting on a plane waiting to take off and that we have all made rude statements to our travelling companions when the pilot comes on to explain the one hour delay and says "thank you for your patience", as if you have a choice! Well, I am going to ask for your patience in advance. We are embarking on something very new, for all of us, and changing the habits formed over many years. We are almost bound to have made some trivial mistakes in the process, normally because we have no idea that "such and such" does that particular thing - I have already come across my weekly allowance of such things this week and it is just Tuesday!
I hope that those of you who have a need to interact with our computer systems will see and feel that we have made strenuous efforts to make things easy. Once we get going we will be reviewing what we do and how we do it as well as reviewing the whole P2P process so that we can improve on it in year 2, where possible.
Some of you may be wondering what is happening to the "National Grading System". It is still our intention to deliver the NGS as soon as we can. Unfortunately this has been substantially delayed due to the illness and recent unfortunate passing of Dr John Carter, who had been leading this project since it started. He is a hard act to follow but we intend to fill the gap as soon as we can and move forwards. In any event, we always needed a considerable amount of "real data" in order to verify the mathematics that will lie behind the NGS and this will now be provided and available when we are ready to progress.
A reminder about receiving the EBU magazine, English Bridge. Our new members will receive their first magazine in June, as the advanced schedule of printing and distribution meant that we will not have had your details available to us for the April issue, which has already been delivered. All members will receive the June, August and October issues, which includes the EBU diary with the August issue. Thereafter magazine entitlement will follow the rules laid down in this document available on the EBU website - http://www.ebu.co.uk/pay2play/magazine%20points.pdf.
I must thank a number of people and groups for helping us get this far:-
Stephen Bligh (Scorebridge Owner/Author) for a serious amount of work he has contributed, in helping us with the data collection from most of our clubs and in making the necessary changes to his program which is used by the vast majority of our clubs.
Jeff Smith, who has also helped us along the right path with his advice and guidance and also his scoring software (which is extensively used by the EBU for our events).
Chris Stableford (until recently, Chairman of Surrey County) who authored a very comprehensive file structure for use in Bridge Administration (for the nerds among us it is called USEBIO XML), which we have used in our software development.
To the EBU Clubs and their members who have decided to go forward with the EBU into the future, mostly with great patience and understanding, all of which you will need to continue to demonstrate!
My staff in general at our Aylesbury office for coming to terms with a massive change in their working life, answering a serious number of questions posed by our members on the phone and by thousands of emails answered.
Finally to Michael Clark, who is our IT man and the person who has designed and written all of the software that will be in use after April 1st. His quiet, thoughtful way of doing his job has got us to where we are with a minimum of fuss and apparent bother. I know he has lots of other ideas that he will work on in the future, once we are past this watershed moment of "going live" with Universal Membership via Pay to Play.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Blog 41 - Almost there...
Here we are in late February and things are going well with our preparation for pay to play and the IT changes that will occur.As of today we have processed around 250 clubs membership data. Unfortunately, there are still around 350 clubs who have still not sent us any information, which will be required before they can submit result files after April 1st. Please help us and our mutual members by providing us with the information as soon as you can. We do understand that for most clubs this is voluntary work and it is a chore; if you need any help please call our office and we will do our best to assist.
A reminder; after April 1st only paper master points printed before that date will be acceptable for processing as all new points will be supplied electronically. Once again, if you need any help, just let us know.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Blog #40, Busy year coming....
Writing these year end blogs seem to be about five minutes apart, not twelve months. I am told this is something to do with my age....
The New Year will usher in the EBU's year of implementing change. The past two or three years have been full of consultation and discussion ABOUT change, now it happens. During the first three months of 2010 we will be collecting Universal Membership information from all of our affiliated clubs so that the new pay to play processes can begin on April 1st.
However, this is just the start. The volunteers working on the EBU's new National Rating System will produce a specification for that new service as soon as they are able and we will implement it as soon as practical, bearing in mind other priorities.
The Tournament Committee have recently approved an innovation for our clubs and our own events. We will be introducing the facility for clubs to stratify their club games.
Clubs will (optionally) be able to separate their games into three stratification levels, A, B and C.
Purely as an example, clubs could choose something like the following stratification levels -
C up to Master
B up to Regional Master
A above Regional Master.
The game will be played and scored in the usual manner, but the resulting master point awards will be made taking into account the stratification levels. For example, this means that if a "strat c" player has a good day they will, of course, win the master points at their highest level of achievement, but if they were not that successful but still able to finish in the top part of their own stratified level there will still be a master point award. When this possibility was considered by the interim Club Committee they were extremely enthusiastic. I would hope that we would be able to introduce this facility into our clubs (and some EBU events) during the 2010-2011 playing year, but it will be dependent upon various software authors being prepared to make the necessary changes to their software. We should be in a position to specify those requirements during the first quarter of 2010.
We will also be introducing new Club teacher training during 2010; keep your eyes open for more information in English Bridge.
May I take this opportunity on behalf of all at Aylesbury to wish everyone a great festive season and a Happy New Year. I look forward to receiving your patience in abundance during 2010!
The New Year will usher in the EBU's year of implementing change. The past two or three years have been full of consultation and discussion ABOUT change, now it happens. During the first three months of 2010 we will be collecting Universal Membership information from all of our affiliated clubs so that the new pay to play processes can begin on April 1st.
However, this is just the start. The volunteers working on the EBU's new National Rating System will produce a specification for that new service as soon as they are able and we will implement it as soon as practical, bearing in mind other priorities.
The Tournament Committee have recently approved an innovation for our clubs and our own events. We will be introducing the facility for clubs to stratify their club games.
Clubs will (optionally) be able to separate their games into three stratification levels, A, B and C.
Purely as an example, clubs could choose something like the following stratification levels -
C up to Master
B up to Regional Master
A above Regional Master.
The game will be played and scored in the usual manner, but the resulting master point awards will be made taking into account the stratification levels. For example, this means that if a "strat c" player has a good day they will, of course, win the master points at their highest level of achievement, but if they were not that successful but still able to finish in the top part of their own stratified level there will still be a master point award. When this possibility was considered by the interim Club Committee they were extremely enthusiastic. I would hope that we would be able to introduce this facility into our clubs (and some EBU events) during the 2010-2011 playing year, but it will be dependent upon various software authors being prepared to make the necessary changes to their software. We should be in a position to specify those requirements during the first quarter of 2010.
We will also be introducing new Club teacher training during 2010; keep your eyes open for more information in English Bridge.
May I take this opportunity on behalf of all at Aylesbury to wish everyone a great festive season and a Happy New Year. I look forward to receiving your patience in abundance during 2010!
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Blog 38 - P2P Computer Systems update
I thought it timely that this blog provides an update on the progress of the Pay to Play computer facilities.
The EBU uses a “package” system for managing its membership, known as Enterprise. This system has been in use at Aylesbury for quite a few years and it works well. However, it does not do everything we require it to do when we change over from an annual subscription to a Pay to Play subscription. Our resident IT expert has therefore been hard at work writing an internet based “add on” to Enterprise which will be entirely under our control but will still use Enterprise as required.
Current Position
We have written and tested the software that synchronises the Enterprise package with our Database. As IT people love to label everything this is now called “MUSE”, which stands for “Michael’s Utility for Synchronising Enterprise” – no prizes for who created that name!
We have developed and tested a standard file description for transmitting Pay to Play session data to the EBU. This standard was originally developed by Chris Stableford, the Chairman of Surrey CBA (thanks Chris!) and an IT consultant. We still occasionally liaise with Chris to make minor adjustments but this is becoming rare. Currently more than a dozen scoring system authors (including all the major ones) have responded positively to our contacts saying that they will be updating their programs to cope with Pay to Play and a number of these have sent us test files already.
We have tested “real” membership data from a number of clubs now and this has gone well. This involves checking EBU numbers against our database for accuracy, looking up names and addresses of those without EBU numbers to see if they are or were members, checking postcodes and generating full addresses. There are a number of things that can be wrong with the file, e.g. 10% of the postcodes one club submitted were invalid, and we are developing a way to swiftly and clearly relay these back to the club so that they can correct them and resubmit.
We are now working on the “beautification” of the web site access that clubs and counties will use, modifying it from the very utilitarian way of doing things that IT people are happy with!
We are very grateful to Jeff Smith, who, as a member of the Universal Membership Project Board, provided valuable start up advice to us when we started the development.
Future Schedule
By approximately the end of September we will have completed work on the early version of the website interface. This may still be cosmetically sparse, but functionally complete.
In early October we will start detailed testing with the help of a small number of interested parties.
During the rest of October and November we will commence testing with a group of volunteer clubs using real-life data in real-life situations.
By the end of December we will have completed work on what will be the “go live” version of the website interface. We will then prepare the website database with live data and start synchronising it with Enterprise on a daily basis and release it for public consumption.
From January to March we will undertake large-scale testing of all aspects of the system with both individual members and clubs. Clubs will start to submit their membership data to us and will be able to play around with the system until they’re satisfied with its operation. Obviously, any Pay to Play files submitted during this period will be wiped off towards the end of March in preparation for the launch.
On April 1st 2010 we will “Go live”!
Health Warning
In my previous career my business developed software commercially. I must have been involved in more than 60 system implementations over 20 years. They almost all went live without major problems, but they almost all had minor ones! This is unfortunately normal. The computer can only get it right if we tell it the right things to do. We are working hard to get it right first time, but problems do occur, which is what the testing stages are all about, as we hope to trap most of the issues at that stage.
With the help of the key staff at Aylesbury, and the many willing volunteers who have offered their help and support we expect to get most of it right. However, even after more than three years in my job almost every week throws up another way of doing things that we knew nothing about; this means that we can be pretty certain that we will trip over one of those as we start up the new system!
We have been offered the voluntary services of more than 20 people who will be happy to assist any clubs who need some computer support. So, well in advance of going live, I ask for your patience. With patience and good humour we will get all of the changes through and move forward smoothly!
The EBU uses a “package” system for managing its membership, known as Enterprise. This system has been in use at Aylesbury for quite a few years and it works well. However, it does not do everything we require it to do when we change over from an annual subscription to a Pay to Play subscription. Our resident IT expert has therefore been hard at work writing an internet based “add on” to Enterprise which will be entirely under our control but will still use Enterprise as required.
Current Position
We have written and tested the software that synchronises the Enterprise package with our Database. As IT people love to label everything this is now called “MUSE”, which stands for “Michael’s Utility for Synchronising Enterprise” – no prizes for who created that name!
We have developed and tested a standard file description for transmitting Pay to Play session data to the EBU. This standard was originally developed by Chris Stableford, the Chairman of Surrey CBA (thanks Chris!) and an IT consultant. We still occasionally liaise with Chris to make minor adjustments but this is becoming rare. Currently more than a dozen scoring system authors (including all the major ones) have responded positively to our contacts saying that they will be updating their programs to cope with Pay to Play and a number of these have sent us test files already.
We have tested “real” membership data from a number of clubs now and this has gone well. This involves checking EBU numbers against our database for accuracy, looking up names and addresses of those without EBU numbers to see if they are or were members, checking postcodes and generating full addresses. There are a number of things that can be wrong with the file, e.g. 10% of the postcodes one club submitted were invalid, and we are developing a way to swiftly and clearly relay these back to the club so that they can correct them and resubmit.
We are now working on the “beautification” of the web site access that clubs and counties will use, modifying it from the very utilitarian way of doing things that IT people are happy with!
We are very grateful to Jeff Smith, who, as a member of the Universal Membership Project Board, provided valuable start up advice to us when we started the development.
Future Schedule
By approximately the end of September we will have completed work on the early version of the website interface. This may still be cosmetically sparse, but functionally complete.
In early October we will start detailed testing with the help of a small number of interested parties.
During the rest of October and November we will commence testing with a group of volunteer clubs using real-life data in real-life situations.
By the end of December we will have completed work on what will be the “go live” version of the website interface. We will then prepare the website database with live data and start synchronising it with Enterprise on a daily basis and release it for public consumption.
From January to March we will undertake large-scale testing of all aspects of the system with both individual members and clubs. Clubs will start to submit their membership data to us and will be able to play around with the system until they’re satisfied with its operation. Obviously, any Pay to Play files submitted during this period will be wiped off towards the end of March in preparation for the launch.
On April 1st 2010 we will “Go live”!
Health Warning
In my previous career my business developed software commercially. I must have been involved in more than 60 system implementations over 20 years. They almost all went live without major problems, but they almost all had minor ones! This is unfortunately normal. The computer can only get it right if we tell it the right things to do. We are working hard to get it right first time, but problems do occur, which is what the testing stages are all about, as we hope to trap most of the issues at that stage.
With the help of the key staff at Aylesbury, and the many willing volunteers who have offered their help and support we expect to get most of it right. However, even after more than three years in my job almost every week throws up another way of doing things that we knew nothing about; this means that we can be pretty certain that we will trip over one of those as we start up the new system!
We have been offered the voluntary services of more than 20 people who will be happy to assist any clubs who need some computer support. So, well in advance of going live, I ask for your patience. With patience and good humour we will get all of the changes through and move forward smoothly!
Friday, 15 May 2009
Blog 35 - It has been a while..
These days finding time to write blogs is more difficult. We are working hard to implement the new systems we have been asked to put in place and I am pleased to say that things are proceeding to plan.
I do find myself still having to deal with the most extraordinary documents that come my way and, I have to take the time to ensure that those of you who receive these documents are informed that they are full of misinformation.
Myths which are being circulated at the moment include that the EBU is requiring a "worm" (a sort of virus) to be installed on all club's computers so that the EBU would know what the clubs are doing and, separately, that the EBU is trying to legally bind clubs to the EBU. These stories and all similar ones are categorically untrue. Those of you who have read the Pay to Play pack of information sent to all our clubs and the club affiliation agreement enclosed with it, will know this to be so.
If any of you have any questions, or want real information on all aspects of Universal Membership via Pay to Play, please contact us by email on paytoplay@ebu.co.uk or on our helpline 01296 317200.
Looking to the future, we have started to introduce various membership benefits that are and will remain available exclusively to EBU members and we hope that this will include all those members in our affiliated clubs. The latest addition to this growing list being a new relationship with HMCA, an organisation that provides medical and other insurances to federations such as ours. If you already have private medical cover I suggest that you take a look via the link on our website at the options available via HMCA. The savings on this type of policy alone, if it suits you, could save considerably more than any money you may spend on membership of the EBU! Have a look at all the membership benefits here.
I do find myself still having to deal with the most extraordinary documents that come my way and, I have to take the time to ensure that those of you who receive these documents are informed that they are full of misinformation.
Myths which are being circulated at the moment include that the EBU is requiring a "worm" (a sort of virus) to be installed on all club's computers so that the EBU would know what the clubs are doing and, separately, that the EBU is trying to legally bind clubs to the EBU. These stories and all similar ones are categorically untrue. Those of you who have read the Pay to Play pack of information sent to all our clubs and the club affiliation agreement enclosed with it, will know this to be so.
If any of you have any questions, or want real information on all aspects of Universal Membership via Pay to Play, please contact us by email on paytoplay@ebu.co.uk or on our helpline 01296 317200.
Looking to the future, we have started to introduce various membership benefits that are and will remain available exclusively to EBU members and we hope that this will include all those members in our affiliated clubs. The latest addition to this growing list being a new relationship with HMCA, an organisation that provides medical and other insurances to federations such as ours. If you already have private medical cover I suggest that you take a look via the link on our website at the options available via HMCA. The savings on this type of policy alone, if it suits you, could save considerably more than any money you may spend on membership of the EBU! Have a look at all the membership benefits here.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Blog 34 - England, England
I was recently invited to a celebration party for the English teams that were so successful at the World Mind Sports games in Beijing. Just to remind you, our ladies team won a Gold medal, our Open team won Silver as did our U21 Junior team. Speakers at this party pointed out that this was the most successful English team event EVER. We have won world championships before, but the overall performance of all five teams was outstanding.
While I was there I was speaking with one of the Gold medal winning ladies and I had to point out to her the strenuous efforts that we made during the last week of the competition, when it seemed we were poised to win a few medals, to obtain some media coverage. Unfortunately we almost drew a complete blank until, literally at the last minute, we were able to make contact with James Mates, the ITN news presenter (and an enthusiastic EBU member), who managed to insert a thirty second news slot at the end of the 11pm news along with a still photo of our victorious ladies and open teams (full transcript here). As a result we made some national radio news bulletins the next day….still a poor reward for such outstanding achievement.
The same speaker at the party went on to say that this should serve as a springboard for future international success for our English teams, which again led me on to think about what our members (and non members for that matter) think about the success of our international teams. This success is due in no small way to the dedication of the participants themselves to be the best they can be, and the very many volunteers who make up the support staff; the non playing captains, coaches and selectors.
It would be really nice if bridge players throughout the country showed more support for our teams; the publicity that we could get for future success will help develop our game at all levels, and perhaps bring in more money for the game. So, watch out for future events; we always highlight these events on our web site and most of these events have featured games on Bridge Base Online, where you can very easily watch live games and see how it should (hopefully) be done. You can learn from the experts, at no cost, and at the same time support your team! Which brings me to my final point – we are investigating setting up a supporters club for our international teams. Would you be willing to join? If so, how much would you be willing to contribute? Let me know (email: englandsupporter@ebu.co.uk) so we can ensure that we can build on our success.
While I was there I was speaking with one of the Gold medal winning ladies and I had to point out to her the strenuous efforts that we made during the last week of the competition, when it seemed we were poised to win a few medals, to obtain some media coverage. Unfortunately we almost drew a complete blank until, literally at the last minute, we were able to make contact with James Mates, the ITN news presenter (and an enthusiastic EBU member), who managed to insert a thirty second news slot at the end of the 11pm news along with a still photo of our victorious ladies and open teams (full transcript here). As a result we made some national radio news bulletins the next day….still a poor reward for such outstanding achievement.
The same speaker at the party went on to say that this should serve as a springboard for future international success for our English teams, which again led me on to think about what our members (and non members for that matter) think about the success of our international teams. This success is due in no small way to the dedication of the participants themselves to be the best they can be, and the very many volunteers who make up the support staff; the non playing captains, coaches and selectors.
It would be really nice if bridge players throughout the country showed more support for our teams; the publicity that we could get for future success will help develop our game at all levels, and perhaps bring in more money for the game. So, watch out for future events; we always highlight these events on our web site and most of these events have featured games on Bridge Base Online, where you can very easily watch live games and see how it should (hopefully) be done. You can learn from the experts, at no cost, and at the same time support your team! Which brings me to my final point – we are investigating setting up a supporters club for our international teams. Would you be willing to join? If so, how much would you be willing to contribute? Let me know (email: englandsupporter@ebu.co.uk) so we can ensure that we can build on our success.
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