The bridge background is improving gradually, with more clubs re-opening for live bridge, and numbers increasing steadily. However, there is no doubt that the pandemic has had an adverse effect on our membership, which is now substantially lower than it was in 2019/20. Hopefully, there are some further members planning to return to bridge, perhaps in September. But we also urgently need to seek new members, or encourage a few “lapsed” ones to come back.
To this end, the CBAI will be supporting a National Bridge Promotion Week in August, to facilitate clubs and regions in holding promotional activities in suitable venues in their local areas. The formal “week” is from August 19 to 28 (so ten days in all) but if there are opportunities outside those dates, clubs should of course take them. The idea is that local club volunteers (ideally ones who are outgoing and can engage with people easily) could hold sessions to promote bridge in shopping centres, libraries, community halls, bridge clubs, or at fairs or shows – wherever will either have passing traffic or work as a place to convene for a pre-planned meeting – and hopefully sign up new members for classes in the local area starting in September. We ran a similar exercise in 2019, and the feedback was generally very positive.
Each club secretary should have received within the past few days some generic flyers to promote bridge, to which local contact details can be added. (If you didn’t receive these, or want more, just give the CBAI office a call on (01) 4929666 and we’ll be happy to supply them.) At a minimum, we are hoping that clubs will put those flyers up in shops, community centres, libraries, etc to advertise the fact that there is a bridge club in the area. But an actual event, with volunteers present to chat to people interested in playing bridge, will be much more effective, and the CBAI can provide all the supports needed to run such a promotion – banners, posters, pens and cards that you can use as gifts, and so on. By way of example, the photograph below shows Oona Dwyer and Jim Doyle from the South Eastern Region at their stand at the recent Bannow & Rathangan Agricultural Show, which apparently was a great success. If you’d like to plan a promotional event of your own, please contact Seamus Costello (087-2890814), who is co-ordinating the promotion week for us, and he can organise whatever you need. You will need insurance cover for some venues (typically shopping centres and trade shows); the CBAI’s own cover can be extended to those events, but please give us a bit of notice to do the necessary paperwork. We can also assist with scripts or articles for use on local radio or in local newspapers if needed.
We hope that any club looking for new members (which we suspect is most clubs!) will take advantage of the opportunity to promote bridge, and the local bridge club, in their area, and we look forward to hearing about lots of successful events. Please be sure to take pictures, and to send them to us.
