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Christchurch Bridge Club

Added 28-March-2025 NZ Bridge Website Issues Hi to all Canty Clubs - Ashburton Tournament 5th April Can you please forward this to your members please: "If you entered our 5th April Ashburton tournament in the last few days, while the website was having problems, PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE, check if you are entered. People who did enter very recently have been dropped off it seems. If your name doesn’t appear on the entry list, PLEASE enter again. Thanks. Ashburton Bridge Club 79 Alford Forest Rd Ashburton 7700 (03) 308 4276" From NZ Bridge Hi again everyone, Just quick progress report for you to share with your members. The roll back has been successful. Players and administrators should now be able to enter tournaments We can add flyers to tournament listings and those loaded previously can be accessed. Clubs can now upload session files for masterpoint purposes. Administrators are now able to make changes to player records for membership purposes. There will be some updates that were captured during the days that the revamped website was up that will have been lost due to the wind back. If its session files these can now be reloaded. Membership changes can be reloaded (send to me if that helps) One thing that will be an issue is tournament entries made during this period. Those will have been lost. I am sorry about that but ask that you check the current listings and if you can recall missing ones, please add them back. Share this email with your members and ask them to check their recent tournament entries and resubmit them if they are missing. Tomorrow we will continue the tidy up and have even thing sorted before the weekend. If anyone is having login issues particularly club administrators, please email me. I can record a temp password t get people up and running. Finally, I know that Bridget is working hard to get the congress events back on the calendar and will open them up for entries sometime tomorrow. I will send a note out when this is operative. Thanks everyone for supporting us and for your patience while we sort things out. Some good progress today, and we will all sleep a little easier tonight. Best wishes, Alister. Added 27-March-2025 Helen Bremner , valued club member and past committee member, passed away earlier this week. Helen’s friends are invited by her family to attend a Celebration of Helen’s Life at Birdwood in Beckenham 2-4pm Saturday 29 March. April Tutorial – Aimed at Junior and Intermediate players: This coming Wednesday night at 5.50pm, $5 Learn to switch your brain to the NT page, as responses to NT’s are quite different to when your partner opens 1-suit. Describe your shape and HCP to reach the best contract. We will also learn how to use Stayman correctly to find a Major FIT. NZ Bridge Website Issues: Date: 26/03/2025 To Club Secretaries CC Regions Please share this important information with your members' I am writing to share some important information regarding the situation with the refreshed website and the serious implications that this changeover has had on our database and some key functions. There is no point trying to sugar coat a disaster, so I am telling it as it is. While we had hoped that the functions including tournament entry management, membership management and the congress entry function would be remedied quickly, it is clear to me that this is not going to be achievable. A further issue was discovered last night where in some players had lost their A points after files for a team’s tournament were uploaded. As this was not able to be fixed as of 4pm today I have made the decision in conjunction with the site developers to wind things back to the old Website. This will enable the new offering to be worked on (offline) and tested properly before going live. There is no time frame for this, it’s imperative that we do this properly this time. This will take place tomorrow (Thursday) during which time there will be no website access. It will mean that the position will be rolled back to as of Thursday morning last week. Session files and membership changes input since then will need to be reloaded. Players may find that they need to log in with their former passwords. If need be, I can reset these on request. To make this happen I need you all to work with me. I want clubs to refrain from uploading session files until I give the go ahead to do so. That is likely to be Monday next week. This will include any files previously uploaded from Thursday last week as these will be dropped as part of the wind back. If you have made any membership changes since then I would like you to send the details to me. I will take responsibility at this end to load these when I can. For those who have sent in such changes already, I still have the details, and they will be on my to do list. With regards to the Congress entry function this new offering is not going to be available for this year’s event. When the wind back is up and running Bridget will put the congress events back in the schedule and will open them up for entries. We will advise you by email when this is available. Between us we are working on an option in the short term for payments. It may be by way of the issue of an invoice or using a “stripe” payments facility. More on this when we can. For those clubs with tournaments this weekend I will cut and paste your entry lists now and email those to you separately. I want to make sure you have information as of now. Things are rugged for us all right now, but rest assured we and our designers are working hard to sort this all out. Best wishes, Alister. Date: 27/03/2025 Good morning Just touching base with a progress report for you. Thank you so much for the kind messages we received over night, they certainly help us at this end. We are making good progress with the roll back. The old website is now in view with the restoration of the database as at last week underway. This will take some time to complete. At this point though we are not ready for club admin people to load any changes or input session files. As mentioned yesterday please send any membership changes to me and hold your session files back until we give the go-ahead to upload them. I also mentioned yesterday that players may experience an issue logging in when we give the word that it is safe to do so. They will need to use their original login details. I can reset passwords at this end if need be. Please share this with your members as we want players and clubs to be fully informed as we work through this. I will touch base again later today hopefully with a further report. We will be on deck and available over the weekend to work though queries and issues that arise. Regards, Alister. From 26-March-2025 Sunday Seminar 30th March (this Sunday: aimed at Junior and Intermediate players. Email the office to sign up. Starts at 10am. Tutor: Neal Phillips Cost: $15 Topic: Overcalls The opponents will open the bidding before you about half the time, so it is important to have an effective defensive bidding structure. You and partner must be confident in the meanings of each other’s bids. We will discuss what you are showing partner when you overcall a suit bid, pre-emptive bids, and no-trump bids. When do you double? When do you cue bid? Have you even discussed what it means when you double opponents minor suit pre-empt? Waimate All Grades 8B Tournament: For those who have entered, please read the following message re this tournament. "The link on the email and flyer to our tournament on 6 April has changed because of the recent changes to NZ Bridge website. As long as your members have re-registered on the new website this new link should work. If they have any problems, just email me the names to add. The link is now https://legacy.nzbridge.co.nz/events/11570/Waimate-All-Grades-Pairs " Cruise Bridge session at the Club Date & Time: Thursday 10th April at 10am until 1pm. 20 visitors from the cruise along with Jeff Grotenhuis, owner of the Agile Bridge Club in Los Angeles are coming to play at the Club and we would love our members to welcome and join them in this bridge session. Morning tea provided. See the foyer noticeboard to enter. Westende Jewellers , Club sponsor are having their Anniversary sale 26th March to the 6th April, 421 Colombo Street. https://www.westendejewellers.co.nz/

Added 21-March-2025 Newest Grandmasters Congratulations to Julia and Peter Watson having become grandmasters this year. New Club Committee voted in at the AGM President: Shangar Singh Vice-President: Marilyn Copland Committee: John Skipper Lizzie Thompson Ian Southen Bridget O’Brien Helen Beaumont Rex Denley Sunday Seminar 30th March: aimed at Junior and Intermediate players. Email the office to sign up. Starts at 10am. Tutor: Neal Phillips Cost: $15 Topic: Overcalls The opponents will open the bidding before you about half the time, so it is important to have an effective defensive bidding structure. You and partner must be confident in the meanings of each other’s bids. We will discuss what you are showing partner when you overcall a suit bid, pre-emptive bids, and no-trump bids. When do you double? When do you cue bid? Have you even discussed what it means when you double opponents minor suit pre-empt? Treasurer’s Role: The Club is looking for expressions of interest for the position of Treasurer following the recent resignation of our treasurer, Mark Paget. Please contact the office if you are interested. Cruise Bridge session at the Club Date & Time: Thursday 10th April at 10am until 1pm. 20 visitors from the cruise along with Jeff Grotenhuis, owner of the Agile Bridge Club in Los Angeles are coming to play at the Club and we would love our members to welcome and join them in this bridge session. Morning tea provided. See the foyer noticeboard to enter. Westende Jewellers , Club sponsor are having their Anniversary sale 26th March to the 6th April, 421 Colombo Street. https://www.westendejewellers.co.nz/ From 18-March-2025 Club AGM: Date & Time: March 20th, 2025 at 6pm. There being more Committee Member nominations than positions available financial members may cast a ballot up to one hour before scheduled club sessions until Wednesday and will also be able to vote at the AGM. There will be a Special General meeting to follow the AGM. This Special General Meeting is called solely for the purpose of voting to approve this new constitution and can be found on the Club’s website on the "About" page https://www.chchbridge.co.nz/about (scroll down to find the button to access them). Treasurer’s Role: The Club is looking for expressions of interest for the position of Treasurer following the recent resignation of our treasurer, Mark Paget. Please contact the office if you are interested. The Club’s Annual & Finance Reports can also be viewed on the "About" page https://www.chchbridge.co.nz/about . EFTPOS Tickets: If you purchase an EFTPOS ticket for a session and find you cannot use it, please see the director to give your $10 back in cash. Please do not use them for another session. A ChCh team, Red Devils , won the monthly team event at Crockfords last Friday. The team comprised Janine Tyler, Janene Mussen, Christine Sweeney and Doug Williams.