Our Chief Executive, Dermot O’Brien, recently sent an update letter to all club secretaries. The important points for members to note are:
- given the recent deterioration in the public health conditions, the CBAI has decided to move all its competitions back online for the moment, starting with the Master Pairs on 11-12 December, which will be held on RealBridge, and for which entries remain open;
- the early bird discount for affiliation fees has been extended until 22 December, to give clubs a bit more time to collect the fees and get their paperwork in order;
- the CBAI’s business model is based to a very large extent on live bridge and club affiliation fees, so the pandemic is placing us under some strain, as we have all our normal functions to fulfil (and some additional ones), and all the normal bills to pay; we would therefore encourage all members to pay their affiliation fees, and clubs to pass on their fees as promptly as they can; and
- in light of the above, and the fact that online bridge will be the prevailing version for the foreseeable future, we will be increasing the CBAI’s administration fee for our virtual clubs to 10% of revenues from 1 January; the current rate of 5% does not even cover the cost to us of reconciling and paying monthly fees to the more than 200 virtual clubs on our books.
Many congratulations to John Phelan, who recently qualified as a European Tournament Director via a European Bridge League Tournament Director workshop in Budapest, being awarded an A grade for his efforts. Another highly skilled Irish TD in development, to add to our already distinguished list. Please note John’s serious TD demeanour as he receives his award in this picture; doubtless we can expect to see more of this look in the future.
Finally, here are the results, and Masterpoint awards, from the recent series of IBU Simultaneous Pairs events.
IBU Sims Monday Results IBU Sims Tuesday Results IBU Sims Wednesday Results IBU Sims Thursday Results IBU Sims Friday Results
Our thanks to all the clubs and members who took part. Keep an eye out for the CBAI Simultaneous Pairs in the first week in February, and if your club does not participate, please drop a not-so-gentle hint. Apart from being a fun and educational event for the players, you’ll also be contributing much-needed funds directly to the CBAI.