Committee Minutes post June 2007: Full List

April 2025 Meeting Minutes

Published April 2025

Minutes of the Committee Meeting of the DBA held online 22 April 2025

The meeting opened at 10am.

1. Officers & Members Present: Jacqui Munns (JM) chair; Jeremy Childs (JC), vice chair, Neil Marsden (NM), treasurer, Liz Timbrell (LT), club liaison, Bill Luscombe (BL), Mike Hamon (MH), & Sheila Ferguson (SF).

2. Minutes dated March 11, 2025

These were reviewed and accepted by the committee with no matters arising and are already on the DBA website.

3. Treasurer's Update

As of April 18, the current and savings accounts held c£7,000 & c£28,000, respectively, giving an overall total of c£35,000. This will reduce to c£34,000 once outstanding bills for the Julia Chadwick pairs, the Devon Corwen entry and the Devon County Congress EBU fees are paid. The accounting year finishes on April 30, 2025.
The 2025 Devon County Congress (DCC) has made a surplus in the region of c£340 assuming outstanding bills are as expected. This is lower than last year’s surplus of c£900.
Action NM to reimburse Doug the £60 parking fine he paid at last year’s DCC as the hotel have given us a credit for this.
NM to apply for JM to be added as a signatory to the bank account.

4. Reports from around the county

North Devon Update

Now that the other three sections of the DBA are no longer running, the North Section will also close. However, the members of the North Section will continue their activities, including running the Filleigh charity events, improvers seminars and the beginner’s classes, as a new subcommittee of the DBA to be formed after the AGM. The organising team of the North Devon Congress will also become a new subcommittee of the DBA.
The DBA Constitution will therefore need updating to remove references to the sections. If this is done soon, the new constitution can be accepted at the AGM in July.
The North Devon Congress (NDC) made a surplus of c£2,000, which was more than was expected.
On Sunday, March 23, 2025, 17 teams competed in the Dartington Glass Trophy Swiss Teams event at Filleigh Village Hall, raising £700 for charity. Congratulations to the winners Dave Strawbridge & Mike Walsh with Betty Golding & Margaret Mardlin.
The sixth Bridge seminar by Brent Wormald will take place on Tuesday, 29th April, 2025 at the Barnstaple Library, with 17 currently signed up.
Action JM to update the constitution in time for the AGM.

East Devon Update

Exeter Bridge Club took 40 of its members to Bournemouth for their first Bridge holiday in a long time. The weekend was a great success with lessons in the morning followed by optional duplicate sessions in the afternoon and evening, and there are already 20+ players provisionally signed up for next year.
This year’s Don Pearson event will take place in Teignmouth this Sunday, April 26. The date for next year’s event - Sunday 19 April, at Exmouth Bridge Club, clashes with the provisional date for next year’s Devon County Congress, see below. It was agreed to reschedule the Don Pearson event.
Action JC to arrange a new date for the 2026 Don Pearson.

5. Subcommittees

(i) Devon County Congress (DCC) subcommittee

This subcommittee (SF, NM, & BL) met on March 11 and April 4, 2025 in preparation for the DCC weekend.
BL & John Bower from Newton Abbott Bridge Club dealt the boards and it was agreed to donate £40 to the club as a thank you for the use of their machine.
The DCC went ahead on the weekend of April 11 to 13, 2025 at the Toorak Hotel, and SF and the organising subcommittee were congratulated on running a successful congress.
There were 22 tables in the Swiss Pairs and 19 tables in the Swiss Teams. Cathy & Andrew Smith won the Swiss Pairs and there was a tie for first place in the Swiss Teams between Richard Lingham, Ann Slee, Ruth Edmondson & Brigid McElroy and Mike Huggins, Irene Robinson, John Dakin & Tony Olech.
Although the weekend was undoubtedly a success, there were some issues with the service provided by the Toorak, which necessitated a lot of additional work for SF & JC during the weekend. Consequently, SF has looked at other options for 2026 and has provisionally booked the Grand Hotel in Torquay for the weekend of April 17 to 19, 2026. The daily rate for the Devonshire room at the Grand is more than the room at the Toorak, but the Grand is a superior hotel, and likely to attract more attendees. The venue was briefly discussed and it was agreed by all to confirm the booking. The hotel has also quoted a very reasonable dinner, bed & breakfast rate and SF will ask them to hold some rooms for us.
Colin Simcox is not available on those dates but JC agreed to be the TD next year.
It was also agreed that a subcommittee debrief meeting would be useful.
Action SF to confirm the booking with the hotel and to organise a congress debrief for the organising committee to include JC.

(ii) Devon Competitions

Devon Knockout Teams of Four
Devon will not be represented in the EBU Pachabo in 2025 as there were no entries for the qualifying event. However, as per the recently updated EBU Regulations for 'County representative' events, there appears to be an option to enter a team in the absence of a qualifying competition. This was discussed in the meeting and it was decided not to pursue this option for this year as there had been no interest from teams to compete and there any no pre-agreed criteria for selecting a team.
It was also noted that the qualifying competition no longer requires a knockout element. It was therefore decided that in 2026, the Devon qualifier would be a one-day event rather than requiring teams to organise multiple individual matches, as has recently been the case. Depending on the number of entered teams in 2026, the format could still involve a knockout element if possible, and as long as at least one team entered, Devon would have a qualifying team.
The Devon Premier Pairs for the Julia Chadwick Trophy
This went ahead on Saturday, March 29 on BBO with eight pairs. Unfortunately, one pair pulled out at board 16 due to internet issues, and the scores were adjusted such that we had results for just six pairs at the end. This is the qualifier for the EBU Corwen Trophy (May 31 & June 1, 2025) with the top three pairs eligible to represent Devon. Doug Dunn & Nigel Wain and Jim Grant & Stefan Lindfors were joint winners and there was also a tie for third place between Alex Maddocks & Jesper Rundin and Rob Lawy & Ian Walsh. Third place was awarded to Rob & Ian because of their head-to-head with Alex & Jesper, but as Rob & Ian are not available to play, Alex & Jesper will join Doug & Nigel and Jim & Stefan in the Corwen competition.
Unfortunately, the decision to play fewer boards than usual to encourage more entries meant that not enough boards were played for green points to be awarded and local points were awarded instead.
Western League 2024–25
In April, Devon played Dorset in the final match of the season with Devon B & C winning their matches and the Devon A, B & C teams finishing in 2nd, 2nd & tie third place, respectively.

(iii) Teaching & Transition subcommittee

No Fear Bridge Pairs
The second of these events will take place on Sunday, May 11, 2025 at Meldon Village Hall, near Okehampton. There are currently 37 players signed up, most already in pairs. JC, JM, & NM will attend and will have a short meeting following this one to plan the day.

6. Proposal for a South West Region Competition

Stuart Bridge, chair of Wiltshire has proposed a South West Regional competition, using the results from all the main congresses/Green-pointed events in the South West to award prizes to players to include for example, Player of the Year, Novice Player of the year, etc. although exact details are yet to be decided. If we take part, we may have to pay a small amount towards the prizes, but any publicity that results might encourage new players to attend our two congresses.
This was briefly discussed in the meeting. It was pointed out that this may just reward top players with yet more prizes & points and the consensus was that we would be interested if there was a handicap element to at least some of the prizes.
Action JM to contact Stuart for more information regarding the prize structure and what involvement would cost.

7. Club Liaison Role

Liz has continued to contact clubs by email to raise the profile of the DBA and encourage their members to enter Devon competitions. JC & JM have recently been contacted by Mary Cousins, the new EBU County & Membership Development Officer who is keen to visit some of the clubs in Devon.
Action JM will chat to her this week and will pass on LT’s contact details.

8. AOB

MH noted that not all player names had been uploaded on the EBU Western League site and that the list of eligible players was long with many out-of-date entries.
Action JM to update for next season’s league.

9. Future Meetings

The next DBA central committee meeting will be on Wednesday June 11, 2025 at 10am on Zoom.

The meeting ended at 10.57am.