Barry's Blog 13

In my brief time here at the EBU it has become clear that the EBU has, over the years, provided too little to its core membership, and its clubs. We have spent much of our time developing our good reputation for running tournaments and congresses.

We are, therefore, concentrating our attentions on the delivery of meaningful and helpful services to our clubs and the mass of the members of the EBU that are not regular tournament players. As a result, it was decided by the Board a few months ago that we should create two new posts - these are a Club Liaison Officer and a Communications Officer.

We are well advanced in the hiring for both positions and I would expect them to be filled within the next three weeks.

The duties of the Club Liaison Officer will include the fundamental task of being an accessible and visible face of the EBU to its affiliated clubs; most of whom have never seen anyone from the EBU at their club. The CLO will visit as many clubs as is practicable and will be available for consultation with club committees or management and its members, before hopefully playing and thus meeting many of those present at that session. This will help the CLO cultivate a wealth of knowledge about clubs and their needs, helping them overcome any problems they may face. The CLO will also work with our County colleagues to get as much coverage within the country as possible. The CLO will also be working with our Communications Officer to help us increase the visibility of bridge clubs in the community. Together they will compile a new electronic club newsletter and web forum, to allow interaction of the EBU membership online.

The CLO will help us develop valued services especially helping clubs develop through the Focus on Value education project and the Partner Teacher scheme.

Partner Teachers and Partner clubs are beginning to move forward and the first Learn and Play clubs are now being formed. Indeed next month a new club is being launched in Kent with some novel publicity. I expect that this will feature in a future article in English Bridge, so more later.

We have now run two courses for Partner Teachers, and have trained some brand new EBUTA teachers as well as adding to the skills of a number of existing teachers who are considering becoming full Partner Teachers. The next course is due to be run during the week of the Brighton Summer Congress. We have room for more attendees; please contact click here for more information or click here to email Lisa Miller who will be pleased to help you.

More "new beginnings" include our new Editor for English Bridge, Elena Jeronimidis, who brings many years of experience in the Bridge magazine field to us. She is full of ideas and contacts that will help onward development of our members' magazine and build on the excellent work done by our departing Editor, Brian Cook, who we wish well in the future. Elena's first issue will be in August.

We are keeping a watchful eye on new technology developments in the bridge market and we are beginning the redevelopment of software used in our own congresses so that we can make increasing use of current technologies such as Bridgemate.

Lots of activity, lots to do...

Barry's Blog 12

At the end of March I got my first taste of representative Bridge. The Corn Cairdis ("The Cup of Friendship") is played for annually between a team from England and a team from Ireland. The competition was started to fill a gap back in the days when the Irish never participated in the Camrose home internationals - these days they win it!

Anyway, the team consists of a team from a club, a team from a county and an "officials" team - which is, of course, the only way that I could possibly creep into a representative team. The English team is picked by the EBU Chairman and he cast his net widely.

Being a "friendly" the arrangements for playing are, of course, very convivial. All visiting players are accommodated in private houses. The match itself was played in the University of Ireland, Galway so it was very nice indeed and served to make us feel important!

Each team plays its counterpart twice and the others once. At the end of the first day we had a lead of just four victory points which was VERY close. The second day started with all three of our teams winning their matches and we took what proved to be an unassailable lead, though it got severely trimmed by the end! The English now lead 9-6 in the series, breaking a string of three consecutive wins by our Irish counterparts. There will be a more detailed article in due course in English Bridge - there were several superb hands which are worthy of comment, though not by me!

Before we got to Galway my team, the Officials, first went to Dublin for a chat with the management team there and of course we played bridge in the evening in the superb surroundings of the Templeogue Bridge centre, which is part of the CBAI complex. Again, great fun; I was partnered with a very bubbly Irish International who was VERY tolerant of my overall play. Thanks Gilda - great experience for me!

I can confirm my overall experience of playing bridge in Ireland - something mentioned in a previous blog, as excellent. Everything just happens - without much ado about anything. Not one director call that I can remember in 80 hands of bridge!

Closer to home, we are again working on improving the implementation of the Best Behaviour @ Bridge policy brought in last year. We are trying to get standardised penalties published so that all players will be aware of what they are letting themselves in for if the “red mist” rises! It would also be nice if BB@B was adopted for use in all of our clubs but that is a matter for each club to consider.

I am pleased to say that the Bracketed Teams in Canterbury in March was a success. This first ever EBU "bracketed" tournament was run by the Kent Association as an attempt to vary their programme from the traditional Swiss Team/Swiss Pairs formula. Of course, not everyone was happy but most seemed to be, with the responses to a post tournament survey being conclusively in favour, at least of trying more. Forty six teams took part, with about a dozen people either brand new or fairly new to Green Point events participating, which was one of the main points of the new formula. I am fairly confident that the trial of such events will continue.

Finally, I have been given the green light by the EBU Board to do some more detailed work on a national player rating system to run alongside the well established master point scheme. This will be a long term project as it requires several things to be in place before it can come into being.

I will, of course, keep you updated on progress.

Barry's Blog 11

There are very many activities going on within the EBU, all intended to drive the organisation forward, and to explain to our members (and non members for that matter) what we are doing and why. I hear the word "communicate" many times a day. It is important to realise that we are doing things, not just talking about doing things as may well have happened in the past.

For example, we have run the first ever survey of EBU members; almost 20% of the membership responded, which is an incredible response. We will be utilising the responses received in many different ways. We will be running another online survey shortly to ask members for some (belated) views on Announcement and Alerts, the Orange Book, and the application of our Best Behaviour policy in clubs as well as in EBU events.

One of the activities that has been running for a long time in the background is the endeavours of one of our hard working, volunteer Board members who has been working, together with other mind sport organisations, for many years to try and get bridge accepted as a sport so that we can get access to government and lottery money and other financial benefits. It now seems that a recent Act passed by parliament means that, very shortly, mind sports clubs will be able to register as charities, giving many financial breaks to clubs in the area of VAT and council tax. When this all springs in to life we will work together with our clubs to ensure that we all benefit as fully as possible.

We were recently at the European Bridge League's seminar for all of the National Bridge Organisations in Europe. At this meeting we received presentations from the more "successful" organisations that have spent the last five years delivering the goods. As a result, the French have a membership of around 135,000 and it is growing and the Dutch has a membership of around 85,000. In Poland, where bridge is virtually the national sport, they get around 400,000 Euros each year from their Government.The Government money is usually forthcoming because of a measure of recognition given to Bridge in their countries that is only given to UK organisations that are recognised by the IOC as Olympic sports. That is why those organisations are flush with cash while we, relatively speaking, struggle. If we can get bridge recognised as a sport by the British Olympic Committee this would open the door to funding from areas such as the Lottery, something that has been available to the Olympic sports for many years.

I have been interested for some time in trying to find a way for the EBU to introduce a national rating system for Bridge players, in order to satisfy the demands of many members, who believe that while master points are fine for measuring  "lifetime achievement" they do not reflect current abilities. Once again, many European bridge organisations are there already with nationwide systems in place that rank their players. We are fortunate in having among our membership people with a variety of top ranking skills, including IT. I am having discussions with one of our members at present that could result in a National Rating System being run alongside the present master point scheme. While most of this is still in the early days of consideration, the basic method of working would be for all results to be fed through interface software, allowing the use of more or less any scoring programs, into rating software which would result in the players rating being adjusted according to the rating of all players at the table. The rating could easily be used for handicapping purposes as well as purely for interest. These updates would be made available overnight. A sub committee of the board is working on development at the moment and while it is far too early to determine exactly how this aspect would work, the current working hypothesis is that it would be a service provided free to EBU affiliated clubs for their EBU members; however in order to provide a ranking for those many players who may not be EBU members, perhaps we can have a strata of membership just to allow rating for the player/member. This group is also addressing membership management, allowing for different types of member in the future (e.g. Single/Household/Rating etc.). I will hopefully be able to expand on this initiative later in the year.

I have been fortunate enough to be invited to a number of clubs around the country where I am able to speak with ordinary members and the clubs officers. In the recent past I visited an unaffiliated club which was very interesting. While the club is unaffiliated, it is much more successful than many of the EBU affiliates nearby, and a number of EBU members play there. A substantial reason why this happens is behaviour, as it is often the case that these clubs are set up as a direct response to being confronted with aggressive experienced players in the affiliated club. The local teacher in this case, has taught, and is teaching hundreds of new bridge players and makes very sure that when they ask which club they should visit, they are guided to a club that will welcome them with open arms, rather than one that will make their first ever visit to a duplicate club their last. Surely there is a lesson to be learned by clubs with dwindling table numbers - speak to your local teaching fraternity and understand why clubs around you are succeeding.

I also visited an affiliated club set up and run by another hugely enthusiastic teacher; while it runs pretty much under the auspices of the EBU, they do not award master points; they seemed very interested in the rating concept so perhaps that may well be the way forward.

Finally, I am off this forthcoming weekend to play in the first "Bracketed Teams" green pointer that has been run in England. In this event, groups of 7 or 8 similarly ranked teams play a round robin format against all of the teams in their bracket. This inaugural event was expected to be of great interest to those many players who have never tried a green pointed event. I am delighted to say that quite a large number of team members registered to play have no green points to their name.

I suppose, following my usual practice, they will have after playing us on Sunday! I hope they enjoy it - I will, win or lose.

Barry's Blog 10

...and the Survey says

I have never worked for a members organisation before. I have to say, it is a tough job. You lot are very demanding people; what one person finds they are totally happy with, another hates. If we change something somewhere, you can be sure that somewhere else, someone will complain; it is a conundrum without end.

So, on January 15th we closed the EBU's first ever attempt at a membership survey, at least as far as anyone can remember. Was it perfect? No, of course not. Was it worth it? Yes, for sure. Ironic really, that a number of members missed the point completely and complained about the structure and content of the survey!

Around 4,400 members responded which is hugely helpful, unfortunately, more than half on paper, which has made our job more difficult in wading through the results. This figure is interesting because the current status of the survey informs us that 76% of respondents said they have internet access at home but most did not use it to respond!!!

68% of those that responded said that they played in tournaments though many of these not in EBU congresses, which is interesting - because that means that 32% of non tournament players bothered to respond, for which we are very grateful.

In the April issue of English Bridge we will publish the results of the survey. In this blog I want to address some of the "written in" comments which I feel need some correction or for which I can provide an immediate answer.

To give you an idea of the polarisation of opinions I quote as follows:-

1) "I think the EBU does a good job and gets too much stick".
2) "My experience of the EBU organisation very poor, to say the least"
3) "It is a very well organised entity – cannot fault it"
4) "A load of rubbish"

This is the same organisation, four different members, opposite attitudes. I ask myself, how can we deal with these two views and keep them both happy? The answer is we cannot do that.

For the record; I and my staff are administrators responsible for daily operations at the EBU. We do not set ANY policy for the EBU. All policy matters are considered and made by the Board of Directors, who are themselves elected by the Shareholders, on behalf of the membership. So by all means address your criticisms of policy to me, and I can report them to the Directors, as I attend Board meetings, but please don't criticise the employees of the EBU for simply doing what they are told.

Many people, and I mean many, commented that the EBU spends too much time and effort on the elite of our membership. The Shareholders have already asked the Selection Committee to make a presentation at their next meeting on 23 February, which will allow for a full and frank discussion on some of -these issues. There will be minutes on the EBU web site in due course.

Many people added comments about Kettering. By now you should have noticed that after this season all of the events held there will be moved to a new hotel venue in Leicestershire. I hope this does prove that we do indeed listen to members comments and act accordingly.

Lots of comments made were about the new Alerts and Announcements procedures. The negatives certainly outweigh the positives, but there is far from unanimity in what people think. It is worth reminding people that clubs DO NOT (repeat DO NOT) have to use the announcement procedures, though most do. It is only EBU events that are required to stick to Orange Book rules.

Many people asked why we couldn't follow the examples of France and Holland who have quadrupled their membership, while ours is falling. There is a very simple reason for this; in those countries membership of their national bridge organisation is mandatory, like it is in England for the English Golf Union and many other similar organisations. It so happens that an increasing number of members, some of the policy makers and I think that this should be spread to all EBU affiliated clubs; I know that not everyone agrees with that view, but the pendulum appears to be swinging towards that system for the EBU. If every non-EBU member of an affiliated club became a member, our numbers would probably triple, and our subscription amount, and other charges too, could remain stable whilst allowing us to invest in promoting duplicate bridge across all age ranges in England, something that our members appear to want us to do as 60% of you believe there are not enough new faces in our game.

English Bridge magazine comes in for its share of praise and condemnation

"The magazine is dire. It is poorly written, disjointed and unfocussed. It lacks human interest."

"Magazine fantastic but too big either 3 pages or 1/2 size, no time to read it all"

How on earth are we to satisfy both ends of this spectrum?

A lot of people commented on the web site. As ever, views at either ends of the scale.

Members also commented that the EBU does not do enough for or engage enough with its clubs. This particular area of concern is about to be addressed.

A few other quick points

• To the person that asked us to change the scoring system for duplicate bridge, sorry we can't do that.
• EBU Officials are elected - not selected.
• For the record; the EBU does not run any online bridge clubs. Bridgclublive is an affiliated EBU club, but we exercise no more control over it than we do any other EBU affiliate.
• We cannot pick out specific responses from over 4,200 responders for specific emails. If you have a specific question, please email me and I will do what I can.
• We are doing our absolute best to get Bridge into schools. Please pressurise the Education people in your own towns, not us. That is where the blockage tends to be.
• We would love to have a rating system for all players as happens in France and some other European countries. However, as mentioned above, they all have universal membership and all use one scoring program. How do members feel about that?
  

Well, to finish, times they are a changing! Due to research undertaken by our policy makers, in the very near future we will be advertising for two new positions; a Communications Officer and a Club Services Officer. Please lookout for the adverts which will be placed on our web site and if you want to apply, or think you know somebody that should apply please let me know.

These two new members of staff will help turn the EBU into a better organisation - something we all are striving for on a daily basis. Oh, and by the way, we will still have three less staff than we had last year.

Barry's Blog 9

In this Blog I write again, unashamedly, but perhaps slightly repetitively, about the future of duplicate bridge in England and why the EBU believes so wholeheartedly, in its new education initiative Focus on Value.

My last "official" event of 2006 was to visit a very exhilarating bridge club, having been invited to their Christmas party. The club is the Aylesbury Vale Bridge Club, nice and convenient to the EBU office. The club is run by Sue Maxwell, who has been teaching bridge for many years and who has developed her own methods for doing this, of course based 100% on Bridge for All, and so successfully that over 200 new members of the EBU have been taught by her in the last four years and almost all of them remain EBU members, and active members at that!

I was joined at the party by the EBU Chairman, Peter Stocken, who has presented a trophy for their Teams tournament, while I was charged with presenting a trophy donated by Helen Schapiro. At the same time, Sue announced a list of other prize winners and members who had made notable advances. So why have I gone into all of this detail, you may ask? Well, my visit confirmed to me that what I saw was the future of duplicate bridge in England; the only future that makes sense.

These players, almost none of whom have been playing bridge for more than a couple of years, now play in the local Leagues and have begun to do very well, they have started up the ladder of achievement by winning master points, so derided by many of our more established members. It was quite something to hear people applauding new County Masters! We have received many comments on our recent survey which have been rather dismissive of the Master Point system. I defy anyone who criticises the system to come along to Aylesbury Vale, see the benefits in action and then inform us that MPs are a waste of time. Only a total cynic would say that the obvious pleasure gained by a newcomer to Bridge on receiving their first official ranking was not worthwhile.

I believe that this is the ONLY way that the EBU and duplicate bridge in England has the faintest chance of existing into the next two decades. Sue teaches delightful people, mostly in their middle age or later, who have come to bridge for reasons that are perhaps beyond Bridge itself. At the end of the evening, one of their "senior" members, Tony Schaffner, gave a short speech of thanks to Sue for what she does and included a quite emotional comment about how many of the members of the club had taken up bridge to help replace a major loss in their lives.

We have all heard descriptions of how bridge players form a community. Even the dourest competitive tournament player is part of that community, known to many thousands of people across the country. Some of us, who are fortunate to have played in other countries, or online, form communities that span the globe. It is far more than just a game - it is a way of life to many people, one that transcends master points, rankings and behaviour at the table. It is simply about community. The ability to meet in convivial company with people who have similar desires to add more to their lives, to keep their brains active and to add a wider meaning to their lives that may have well been blighted by the loss of a job or a life partner. What better thing can we contribute to the wider community?

All of this was visible to us at Aylesbury Vale Bridge club. I have seen it too at other clubs I have been able to visit in my early days in my job with the EBU, as did our membership development group on their visits last year. These clubs are always run by people who want to give something back to the game that has provided them with such enjoyment. Nearly always it relies on volunteers, the lifeblood of bridge. While at Aylesbury Vale I was introduced to one of the younger members who, having been first taught four years ago, is now a qualified Director and runs league teams. Wow! How can we replicate this level of success across the country? Should we not be concerning ourselves about this at least as much as we worry about who and how someone won the Tollemache or the Gold Cup?

If we don't worry about the future of bridge who will be competing in our tournaments in twenty years time? At the moment, I would say there is a very good chance that competitive bridge, as we presently know it, will not be around in twenty years. Our numbers are dropping year on year as our membership ages, and as fewer new people come into the game. We entered some years ago into a spiral of decline that we have not yet escaped from; now I believe our escape route is visible.

We must embrace the community that we are part of, and work towards enriching and enlarging that community. This is why the EBU have collaborated with Sue to formulate our new "Focus on Value" project. Whatever else we do, we must learn from Aylesbury Vale and similar clubs, the lessons for developing new members of our community.

Please consider joining our new way of doing things and whether you can sign up to become a partner teacher and make a big difference to your bridge community. Click here for further information.

But don't forget, you can make a difference every time you play by being welcoming and understanding to our newer less experienced players.

Aylesbury Vale and similar clubs are the future of bridge. Let's hope they can produce many more County Masters in the next twelve months. If they don't there will surely be many fewer Grand Masters in 2027.

Barry's Blog 8

This year has been fascinating; I started it as a retired person, not expecting to re-enter long term employment again. I end it having been in my second career over six months and just about feeling that I know what is going on. In the same six months I have moved house and had a son get married, so it has been quite hectic.

It has also been a busy time at the office. Personally, after remembering everyone's name, the challenge has been getting to grips with an organisation that has been around for so long; my first Board meeting, first AGM etc. I have tried very hard not to be the typical wielder of a new broom. Any organisation with the history of the EBU deserves to be understood before changes are considered; so after that necessary due consideration, we have made some changes to the way we deal with master points and we are now working on a membership management project, which I am confident will be to the benefit of everyone, removing many historical problems that have plagued Aylesbury/County relationships for a very long time.

I joined the EBU in full knowledge that many of our members have been very critical over a long period. Indeed, I had my own checklist of complaints. So during my first period here it was no surprise to have to field many communications from my fellow members, critical of a wide variety of things

Now that I do understand the organisation from within I have a slightly different view. Some members believe that they pay too much for membership, something I cannot agree with; forty pence per week of anybody's money is not very much. I have heard people say that the EBU offers "jobs for the boys", something else that is quite wrong. People criticise expenditure on our International teams; our next meeting with shareholders in February will be concentrating on this vexatious issue. Of course, changes to playing procedures have been a reason for many a letter or email. These changes will be reviewed in the near future.

The Board has had a sub committee working VERY hard on membership development and the time has now come to decide the future of the English Bridge Union. In my opinion, we are at an absolute crossroads. We must urgently do what we can to arrest what has been a declining membership, in line with the declining demographics of bridge worldwide. The Chairman, Vice-Chairman and all the Board members are very forward looking and intent on ensuring the future of the EBU.

The membership development team's new ideas will help formulate the next steps we are to take in our redevelopment of the Union. I suspect that some very important decisions will be taken in 2007 which will determine our future. It will be necessary for everyone to have an open mind when considering what is presented to them. We must have the vision to look five or ten years forward to safeguard our game for our children and grandchildren.

As a first step, we have started our "Focus on Value" project which places Teachers and Clubs firmly at the centre of the EBU universe. The new initiative has been devised to give bridge teachers the tools to create their own playing communities and to help them structure their courses so that their students can club together and enjoy their game beyond the classroom. There has been a great response to the call for Partner Teachers in the December issue of English Bridge, and we hope that many more of you will apply to join the courses taking place in the Spring. For more information on the courses email Lisa at the office and ask for our info booklet.

A lot of members have indicated interest in a "player rating"; I am quite keen to investigate a scheme (alongside master points) for providing all active players with a rating that is generated from their actual performance. My online club, Bridgeclublive, uses such a scheme and it is very good. The system would necessarily be heavily reliant on technology and this is a potential drawback, as we have a lot of different scoring programs in use around the country. If anyone has a good idea about such a scheme I would certainly like to hear about it.

Our survey (warts and all, it was our first attempt) has produced almost 2,000 responses which is truly excellent, making the results very useful. The survey does not close until January 14th, so if you have not submitted your response yet perhaps you can find some time over the holiday period to do so. Click here for more information and to go to the online version.

As was customary at the start of my blogging life, I need to clarify something from a previous blog. In my last one I mentioned that the EBU's attempt at a scoring and membership system (CASS) was a failure. The project as a whole did prove to be a failure but does not reflect at all on any person involved in developing the software and no criticism of any individual was intended.

I will be at the London end-of-year Congress and will be happy to discuss anything with members in between my miserable attempts at winning green points.

I would like to offer Seasons Greetings to all Members, my staff in Aylesbury, our webmaster(s) Anna and Mark and all of the many volunteers who help keep our organisation running. 2007 is going to be a year of very important change for the English Bridge Union. I do hope it is a happy and healthy New Year for all. I look forward to it with great interest.

Barry's Blog 7

Master points, we love them, we hate them, but we always want them on our records 5 seconds after we have won them, don’t we?

Well there are a number of changes happening around master points, so I thought it would be a good idea just to share with you all some stuff…..but first how it is done in the USA.

Over there, the ACBL is fortunate enough to have just ONE scoring program, ACBLSCORE. I believe that this is used for 99.9% of all scoring at clubs and tournaments, whatever the format. All winners of master points have their records updated once a month, automatically. In my own personal experience - somehow I managed to become an ACBL Life Master - they do not make mistakes either. No bits of paper, no worries about what year the points relate to, no phone calls to ACBL staff required.

Back here, we are in a very different place with regard to technology and master points. We have numerous scoring programs in use; some allow direct crediting of master points from clubs, others do not. The number of points being received electronically is growing, but still represents a minority of MP submissions.

None of these programs, unfortunately, can do the whole job for us at the EBU, with regard to the myriad of tournaments that we run. Max Bavin has, for many years, dreamt up scoring methods and movements that are probably unique to us in England - and perhaps the other home Unions; these methods required software to be written a very long time ago and these programs are, what is now called in the IT industry, “legacy software”. This is jargon for obsolete and impossible to change software! None of these programs allow us at the EBU to directly credit our own master points! How stupid does that make me feel you ask? Well………. it did, but now I understand the reasons I am much more tolerant of the situation.

Basically, at the end of each EBU tournament we have to run through many different processes in order to be able to credit master points to the CORRECT record. Unlike the USA, we take the vast majority of our entries before our tournaments. Then people turn up to play without pre-booking and expect us to have all of the information at our fingertips to allow for a speedy entry. Yet most EBU members cannot recall their EBU number, which is the key to everything that we do. There are many members with identical names, yet often that is all we have to go on. So, naturally, we screw up and sometimes allocate points to the wrong Smith or Jones! That is why we take a considerable time after an event to try and get it right first time.

We have been discussing the future of scoring software within the EBU. Unfortunately, the EBU’s own attempt at writing software, CASS, proved to be a failure, so we are busy identifying a market leading product as the “EBU Standard” for clubs. This program, when selected, will have the characteristics of what we believe is needed for EBU clubs, and will have the direct crediting master point functionality needed, as well as integration with Bridgemate technology. At the same time, we are working on a medium term replacement for much of the “legacy” - equals obsolete, remember - software that we use internally. That will, of course, also allow direct crediting. But this will take some time, because of the nature of our own requirements.

So please, could I ask members to be patient. We always try to get these master point updates done quickly, and we do know it can sometimes be done better.

These improvements will happen, but they are just one of a number of tasks and projects that we are undertaking to improve the quality of services that we provide to members. Everyone does their very best and we do know what the problems are and……………….. we WILL get there!