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Welcome to the first news from the Wellington area with Paul Maxwell. The weather has been great and so has the bridge. Read on.

 The Wellington Regional Bridge Committee ran a Junior League during 2015. This initiative was well received by Junior players, based on comments received by the organiser, Tony Sutich. The joint winners of the first league were Angela McDonnell and Peter Watts, (both Kairangi) with Graham Potter (Wellington) a close third.

 

Some clubs have returned to holding separate Junior tournaments, rather than combine them with Intermediates. This helps encourage more Junior entries, as experienced Intermediate players can be daunting opponents for beginning bridge players. We are expecting more Junior entries in 2016 because of the Junior League and separate tournaments.

 

The Regional Committee met with local clubs on the 21st February at the annual Regional Conference. There was a good turnout, enough for four tables at least. Sadly, the opportunity was wasted and no bridge was played.

 

delegates at the recent Wellington Regional Conference

The local Regional Chair, Dinnie Hall, explained the role of the Committee as a subsidiary of NZ Bridge, introduced updates on a number of issues, and opened discussions on matters of interest to the clubs. There was a good discussion on attracting new players and their retention. Allan Joseph and Alan Turner from New Zealand Bridge presented the New Zealand Bridge Strategy document and the proposed Tournament Review, respectively.

 

Looking ahead, we are setting up the interclub competition for 2016 (thanks again to Tony Sutich) with five grades: Open, Open Restricted, Intermediate, Junior and Novice. There were 56 teams in the 2015 competition and we expect a similar number this year.

 

The Wellington Club hosted the North Island teams on behalf of the Committee on the 5th and 6th of March (news to come very soon in a separate news item about this event), We are all looking forward to the Wellington Congress to be held over Anzac weekend.

 

The Hutt Bridge Club will be holding a members' tournament on the 3rd April to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

 The two Joans, Waldvogel and McCarthy, winners of the Waikanae Open on the 14th February.

 

We will finish with some results from the end of last year. The Wellington Club held the finals of the popular and prestigious Schneideman Memorial Premier Teams. The winning team was Stephen Henry, Martin Reid, Annette Henry, Peter Newell, Stephen Blackstock and Anna Herries.

 

Anthony Ker and Alan Grant won the Poppy Roberts Trophy Pairs. Both these events provide the opportunity for quality bridge once a month.

 

Peter Benham and Karl Hayes won the Suzanne Duncan Memorial Pairs tournament, held over the Xmas break on the 27th to 29th December.

 

A theory has been postulated that one or two of the winners might have been close to being contemporaries of the pioneers who gave their names to the events. Any evidence on this will be reported in the next update.

 

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