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.

Blog #37 - ...even Jean will like this one...

I was recently invited by the Chairman of Exeter Bridge Club (and an EBU TD, Steve Quinn) to visit with them for one of their summer Friday Swiss Pairs evenings, so I went toddling off with Mrs C for a day.

I found a super club, with fantastic facilities, shared with an indoor bowling centre. Interestingly, this facility belongs to the City Council as a benefit of some sort of “planning gain” during a development by a supermarket chain. The resulting facility is a huge benefit to the local population, and it surely must be a wonderful model for clubs around the country, if they can get involved in a similar scheme.

The club has also been successful with Lottery funding and has obtained a dealing machine as a result. Many clubs have now followed the lead set by Alan Boyes at Pershore Bridge Club in obtaining funding and I hope many more can achieve some benefits in this way.

Why the title you may ask? Well, when I arrived at the club one of the members told me that she hated my blog! I enquired as to how she could hate all 36 of them, but she never answered, just smiled. I considered during the return journey how I could ensure that Jean likes at least one of my blogs.

This is the result!

Blog 30 - Things just keep on changing

At the AGM on October 2nd the EBU voted in its first female Chairman. Sally Bugden takes over after being Vice-Chairman to Peter Stocken for the last two years. Her Vice-Chairman will be Andrew Petrie. By the way, Sally wishes to be known as Chairman, not "Chair" or Chairlady!

I have, naturally, got to know both of them really well. What the Shareholders have wisely done is to put in place two very talented and incredibly hard working volunteers; people that will use their professionalism and dynamism to move our organisation forward.

Peter remains on the Board so as to continue to provide his inimitable depth of knowledge and experience of the EBU. I very much enjoyed having Peter as my "boss" and I have learned a lot from him. At least he will now have more time to devote to his puzzle making!

Sally unveiled the Board's business strategy roadmap to the Shareholders at the AGM. Rather amusingly called "Bidding for the future" the document (which can be accessed here) provides details of the Board's plans for the next five years and how it intends to move these plans forward. This will involve a a great deal of consultation with the membership and research. A number of working groups will be set up to work on areas in great detail so as to cost the development and implementation of the business strategy.

Among the things that are coming along are our plans to turn the Union into a charity. As is typical with most Government changes (except nationalising banks) the new legislation that we have been waiting for has been delayed again until Spring 2009. We are waiting for a new style of charitable company called a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) to be placed on the statute book. This new style of organisation will be the catalyst for the 21st Century governance procedures that we need to have. I will be learning more about the eventual introduction of the CIO next week at a seminar.

Last weekend we tried something new at one of our events (Great Northern Pairs). The Tournament Committee will review the comments made after this event at its meeting in a couple of weeks.

Our teams are presently in China at the Mindsports Olympiad and doing very well at the time of writing. For those of you that cannot sleep, BBO coverage starts in the early hours - details here.

Blog 26 - Duplicate Bridge can't be a sport - can it?

This seems to be one of the questions of the moment. Most of you probably would conclude in a flash that duplicate bridge is not a sport. However, according to the International Olympic Committee it absolutely IS a sport. I quote here directly from the World Bridge Federation’s web site:-

WBF: a 'Recognized Organization'

In June 1995, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) admitted the World Bridge Federation (WBF) as 'part of the Olympic Movement', awarding it the status of a 'Recognized Sport Organization'. This recognition was accorded under Rule 4 of the Olympic Charter".

The list of recognized sports also includes Chess and Boules! Again, taken from the current WBF website, no less than 44 countries' (e.g. Italy, The Netherlands, Russia, China and many others) own Olympic Committees have recognized their national bridge federation and used this to offer them grant money. For example, the Polish Bridge Federation receives their equivalent of many hundreds of thousands of Euros each year as a result of the recognition they are granted. (By the way, it was 37 countries the last time I looked)!

So, you may ask what difference it makes. A lot! If bridge was recognized by the British Olympic Committee we, as the national governing body for England, would have access to finance that is closed to us, money that would be invested straight back into the game at all levels to develop it for the future. Lottery money that is very hard to get at the moment would be easier for us – basically it would help a lot.

We know that the barriers are dropping in this country; the Charities Act 2006 gave Mind Sports the status it needs to apply for charitable status, for which we have started the process. We need to do as much as we can and so we have joined together with the English governing bodies for Chess, Go and Draughts to form the Mind Sports Council; that group will lobby everyone it can to try to obtain for our respective sports the same rights and privileges now available to others.

Finally, the first World Mind Sports Games are to be held in Beijing from October 3rd to October 18th, using the Olympic facilities. Take a look at the brochure. It is hoped that this will be a step towards eventual inclusion in a future Olympic Games.

Barry's Blog 22

I have been asked a couple of times what we are doing at present, so here goes….

I am sure that most of you know that the Board’s proposals for change will ultimately be voted upon at an Extraordinary General Meeting on June 4th. The final document will be released by April. We are still gathering and analysing the data and ask any club that has not returned their form to do so as soon as possible as this information will allow us to create as accurate a figure as possible for the proposed pay to play fee.

However, there are many more areas that we are working on, for example….

We are working on “bridge awareness” days; these events, which will take place around the country during 2008, will be put on with the help and assistance of a willing club (or clubs) in the area we are in. We will be inviting dignitaries, the press and TV to come along and see what we are doing and will attempt to show people who do not play bridge what it is all about and how it helps everyone in many facets of their lives. The first of these days is slightly different, as it is at the National Railway Museum in York and is a “Mind Sports” day and is being put on in association with other mind sports. This will be publicised very soon indeed.

We have been working on plans for a bridge related TV programme, something approaching the Holy Grail to many, and something that is constantly suggested by members. No money has been spent but we have produced a proposal for such a programme, perhaps best paralleled to “Countdown”, and we are now seeking funding for the production of a pilot programme which is necessary for the very hard job of selling the idea to a TV channel. Thus far the work has been done by one of our members, Matthew Baylis a stand-up comedian and Basingstoke Bridge Club member and Matt Betts our Communications Officer. If you know anyone who may wish to fund this pilot programme we would be VERY interested to know about them!

With the Board’s unanimous approval, I am involved in detailed discussions with a specialist legal firm and we are working on plans to turn the English Bridge Union into a Charity. New laws now in place permit such a change and, although there are (as usual) many complexities to over come we hope that we can get there within a year or two. Once it is done it will save the EBU substantial tax costs each year and will allow us to receive legacies and donations for all aspects of our activities without tax implications. At the same time, I hope that we can develop a model constitution for membership owned affiliated bridge clubs to become charities in their own right, which will also provide benefits to those clubs.

We are about to commence work on an online teaching system based on the teaching software available on the ACBL web site (http://www.acbl.org/). This will provide a free and intuitive way for people to self-teach themselves the basics of the way we play in England. We thank the ACBL for granting us permission to use their software for this purpose.

We have just published our first “Club Focus”, which will be a bi-monthly electronic newsletter for clubs around the country. It is available on this website for downloading and we can email it to anyone who wants it. Please let the office know if you wish to be placed on the list to receive it by email.

There are numerous other activities taking place now or will be fairly soon – more news in due course...