two blogs in a day ..

Heavens. But I just wanted to tell you that I have finalised the Charity Challenge and have published the Master Point list – I am printing the points etc etc now, and they will all be posted to the clubs on Wednesday next week. As will the WBU ones, which have been delayed a bit I am afraid (so sorry ..)

This will be the last time I post Master Point Slips to English clubs, as after this the overall points will be direct credited to the EBU. However clubs elsewhere (Scotland, Wales, N Ireland) will continue to receive paper copies so don’t worry.

Oh lord – printer’s jammed – must go and deal with it !

 

 

 

lots of data ...

For all collectors of bridge data, lovely Peter Hasenson has made his European Championship information available and said I can put it on the website, so I have ! Have a look at:

http://www.ecatsbridge.com/documents/eblrecords/Default.asp

 

All the winning countries, names of the winning teams and how many times players have won the event ! Amazing ...

 

It is wet and miserable here today and I don’t want to be here really, but there is a pile of work to do ... including starting to advertise the World Wide Bridge Contest, so if you are reading this and fancy playing in it, do get your club to put in a heat. It is great fun and the brochure is excellent ! Have a look at

 

http://www.ecatsbridge.com/sims/wwbc/default.asp - all the commentaries from previous events are there and make good reading !

 

... right, enough displacement activity ! Time to get a sandwich and get back to work !!

 

 

sun shining - me working !

It is the day of the Portland pairs, the National Mixed Pairs Championship, which is scored by ECatsBridge, so even though it is a Sunday we are here in case we are needed ... which is  a bit of a pity as it is a lovely sunny day. So I am dealing with some emails first, but then while I wait and I am going to do a bit of gardening (with my mobile phone at my side!) then spend some time tagging photographs. We got loads of old pictures scanned recently – a great company called 1Scan (http://www.1scan.co.uk/) ... some of the pictures had a dreadful colour cast and they fixed them beautifully. So now I have to get them into some semblance of order so we can find the ones we want !

 

And so that is what I will be doing while awaiting the results to come through. Hopefully we won’t actually be NEEDED ... the TDs have done it all before and there shouldn’t be any problems. Just hope I am not speaking too soon on that one !!

 

For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, by the way, hurry off to watch Alice in Wonderland in 3D ... it’s brilliant !

 

Right – back to the emails ! More another day ...

Hooray !

I have got the Newsletter software up and running ! Well, that’s not quite true actually, as Mark did it for me really (thank you Mark!) but it does mean that you can subscribe to our newsletters really easily, just by going to:

http://www.ecatsbridge.com/newsletters.asp - we have four on the go at the moment, a Press List, a TD list, a list for Women’s bridge and a list for information about Philadelphia and the world championships, so if you are interested in any (or all) of these, do register for them. I don’t send newsletters out very often so don’t think you would be overwhelmed with information ! They can be useful though, and these blogs act as a sort of “top up” for additional information.

 

That’s about it for today ... now to sort out some bits on the website!

 

Anna x

 

 

Tuesday already ...

And I have lots of newsletters to think about – I need to tell all the Women players about the Women’s Online Bridge Festival and the fact that WBF Online Master Points are being awarded for the first time! Details about the Festival are on the website at www.wbfwomensbridgeclub.org so if you are a woman, or know of women who would be interested in playing in this fun event, do go and have a look. The dates are 12 – 18 April and you need to register with BBO beforehand then register to play in the Women’s Online Bridge Club.

 

Then I must contact the European NBOs about the systems registration for the European Open Teams Championships to be held in Ostend, as they need to get their teams to send their systems to me quite soon.

 

And I need to contact NBOs and TDs and Press and remind them all about the World Wide Bridge Contest in June, so that as many people as possible join us for this excellent event. Details are on the website – just click here to go to the pages about it. Do get your club to join us – it is such a good tournament and lovely to have clubs from all over the world joining in.

 

So I guess I had better get on with it all !

 

Anna x

 

Thank goodness it's Friday

We have had a dreadful 3 weeks .. first all the drains blocked – on a Saturday morning. A weekend without being able to use the showers and only essential services in a careful fashion. Immediate problem fixed on the Monday but long term solution involves digging up the garden. The following weekend, the boiler in the house exploded all over the dining room floor (luckily it is stone so no water damage). This time on the Friday but the engineer couldn’t get parts until the Monday. Another weekend of no showers and no heating this time (and it was **** cold!). Fixed on the Monday and all insured this time. Then we had the garden dug up yesterday to fix the drains. They dug through the gas main! Not a major problem, they fixed that. But it is the gas feed to the office. So we went to check the boiler and guess what ? THAT was leaking. Onto the office carpet. Called them out to look today and it is one dead boiler. Very dead. And very expensive as we have to replace it.

 

So work has been interrupted, but I still managed to get the WBU sims finalised and ... for all you Welsh Bridge Union clubs out there, great news because the WBU sims in the Autumn is going to be a five day event with different hands every day. So do join is and lets get as many people playing as we can !!

 

Now I think I deserve a glass of red wine and a relax ...

 

More soon !

 

Good morning

From Sunny Suffolk ! Another glorious day and a lot of work to do which is a pity, but there you go !

 

Task for today ... lots more updates for my database from clubs (not the most exciting job in the world but very necessary), then some more results to key in for the Charity Challenge. Once I get them all done I will put them on the website and then we are nearly finished for that event. I also need to put up the club lists for the April Pairs – I will post to this blog as soon as I have done that and let you know that they are there.

 

Then I need to get the Regulations finalised for Philadelphia – just waiting for a few clarifications now, and we will be ready to go with that. Systems regulations for the European Championships are on the website, so if you are involved there, please read them and make sure your teams are aware of them. It would be very helpful to have lists of teams from the various competing countries, with email addresses so I can build up my mailing list to keep people informed!

 

So I guess I had better “get down to it!”

 

 

 

Sun is shining ...

... which is lovely as we have been able to have the doors open and freshen up the office. It has moved over now, though, and it is getting chilly but it has been really nice. I have been frantically packing up extra sets of Simultaneous Pairs material for the BGB Event in April, which is great – more clubs playing !

 

And now I am going to settle down and start keying in the results sent to me as travellers from the Charity Challenge, so there will be more results going through soon, then we can finalise it and get the Master Points out to the clubs – the last time I will be doing that, after this one for the English clubs, all the points will be direct credited. But my friends in the other countries, Scotland, Wales and Ireland needn’t worry – you will get your points “on paper” as you always have done.

 

Also trying to find a bit of time to learn about a new program I have for creating FAQ pages which all looks rather fun and useful! I will let you know when it is up and running and you can fire some queries at me J

 

 ... now I must go back to the posting table and carry on packing up packs !

Don't you just hate it ...

When you wake up and the boiler is leaking water all over the dining room for, sulking and not working so you can’t even have a shower ! Now waiting for the boiler-repair-man to turn up (thank goodness for the insurance we have!)

 

Still, at least the office is warm and we can get on with some work! AND it is Friday with the weekend to look forward to.

 

Today’s task is to try and clear my inbox of all the emails about the changes to the Sim Pairs information following the entry forms that went out last week. And then to do some work on all the future ones that I need to get ready. Not very exciting in many ways, but quite a soothing sort of job for a Friday. But I will have to leave a few minutes early as I MUST get to my farm shop and buy some chicken food or my poor chickies will starve.

 

Back after the weekend ...

 

 

I am seriously bored ...

... with this cold weather. We have long grey days, and I can’t get into the garden to plant things, it is damp and cold and I know they won’t grow! My chickens are bored with it too ! It is time it warmed up a bit I think ... so let’s hope it improves soon J

On the work front, we now have lots of information about the European Championships in Ostend – I have posted the Regulations and Systems regulations etc onto the site, together with all the extras, like the disciplinary code – click here to go to the page and you can download all the documents. I would be glad if the teams could please contact me and give me the names of the players and their email addresses so that I can contact them about systems as soon as possible.

Would any UK clubs who have not yet contacted me after getting their Simultaneous Pairs entry forms do so as soon as they can please ? I really need to get the information into my database as soon as possible ! If you play at a UK club, do me a favour and check with your committee that a) they have received the form and b) that they have replied to it – or if you are a new club and have no idea what I am talking about, please email me and make contact !

More in a day or two ...

anna

inundated ...

I know that sending out a big mailshot with entry forms for Sim Pairs is going to result in a LOT of changes coming back to me ... and I was right. I am SWAMPED with email! Thanks to so many of you for responding so quickly though, it really is a great help. I look forward to a week of getting all the data into my computer (I think). At least I have got headphones and can listen to my cool tunes while I work. Amazingly it helps my typing too as I can use it like a metronome. Getting the beat right with my fingers means I type much faster and gives me good practice!

 

Hope you all had a good weekend – the sun shone and shone here and I got a bit over-enthusiastic about spring cleaning, so was exhausted last night. Not helped by a very good dinner party the night before (well I enjoyed it), that went on rather late and involved rather a lot of red wine.

 

Now back to the database ....

 

Anna x

 

 

What a morning

No work done at all as I had to take my car in for service, and there was this shoe shop you see. Oh dear. So not only is the service going to cost me, I am a lot poorer than before I went in the shop.

 

Anyway, I am back now, and have caught up on the morning’s emails (well nearly).

 

For those of you interested in the Camrose results this weekend, they can be found by clicking here – or the link is on the BGB site at www.bridgegreatbritain.org and all the systems are on the BGB site. The results from the first weekend are at http://www.camrosebridge.com/ and the matches are being broadcast on BBO of course!

 

Good luck to all the teams – hope they all have a good weekend !

 

anna

 

Please bear with me ..

This is in the nature of a test, as I have just set up my blog to take my witterings about bridge and life in general from my email account ... and this is to see whether it actually works! If it does, then you are going to get far more blogging from me than in the past, which means I can keep you up to date with the bridge world better.

 

And, of course, with what I am doing as well, which may be nothing to do with bridge !