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  • Committee Minutes post June 2007:  Full List

January 2025 Meeting Minutes

Published February 2025

Minutes of the Committee Meeting of the DBA held online 21 January 2025

The meeting opened at 10am.

1. Officers & Members Present: Jacqui Munns (JM) chair; Jeremy Childs, vice chair (JC), Neil Marsden, treasurer (NM), Bill Luscombe (BL), Liz Timbrell (LT), Sheila Ferguson, (SF).  Apologies: John Wintle (JW), Mike Hamon (MH) had to leave after a few minutes due to technical issues.

2. Minutes dated November 12, 2024

  • 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 January 16, 2025, the current and savings accounts held £4,502.68 & £27,747.72, respectively, giving a total of £32,250.40. This includes eight payments for the Devon County Congress entries, of which one needs a credit.
  • Although the interest rate paid on the savings account has been reduced to 3.56%, we have still been paid £584.53 in the last seven months.

4. EBU AGM on November 27, 2024

  • JM & MH attended the EBU AGM in person. This was a very long meeting during which the new articles of association were eventually approved.
  • The following were voted onto the EBU board; Michael Hornung, Diana Nettleton, Debbie Sandford, Patrick Shields, & Abbey Smith. All were already on the board and Abbey Smith was reinstated as vice chair.

5. Reports from around the county

North Devon Section Report

  • Both North Devon clubs have seen lower than expected attendances recently, at least in part due to illness and winter holidays.
  • Eighteen tables took part in the Charity Swiss Teams at Filleigh Village Hall on Sunday November 17, 2024, with the non-EBU affiliated clubs well represented.
  • Classes for beginners are continuing and will restart in March 2025.
  • There are currently 20 teams and 39 pairs entered for the North Devon Congress. BL has dealt four sets of boards for the Sunday teams and the committee would like to thank John Bower and the Newton Abbott club for the allowing Bill to use their dealing machine.

West Devon Update

  • Thurlestone club has folded after many months of poor attendance.
  • Kingsbridge Regal club have recovered and now have 5-6 tables in the afternoon at their new venue, where there is parking available, as well as shared online sessions with Falmouth club.

South Devon Update

  • None received.

East Devon Update

  • The South West regional TV show Spotlight has approached JC with a view to recording a segment on playing and learning Bridge at Exeter Club. JC will update us in due course.

6. Subcommittees

(i) Devon County Congress (DCC) subcommittee 

  • This subcommittee (SF, NM, & BL) has not met since the last meeting, but will meet immediately after this meeting on Zoom. 
    The advert is in the December edition of the EBU magazine, and there are currently seven pairs and three teams entered.

(ii) Devon Competitions subcommittee

  • This subcommittee (JM, JC, BL) has not met since the last DBA meeting.
  • The Devon Knockout Teams of Four for the Western Morning News Trophy
    The closing date for this competition was Friday, October 25, with no entries received. Without a qualifying competition there will be no Devon representation in the EBU Pachabo Cup in 2025. 
    Using the already established Eastern League as the qualifying competition was discussed at the last meeting. However, using the first of two divisions restricts access to the competition for new teams and has been ruled out as an option by the EBU.
    Following discussion in the meeting it was decided to shelve this competition for this year and reconsider our options for 2026.
  • Devon Club Teams-of-Eight
    This will be held on Sunday, February 23, 2025 and the winners will represent Devon in the Garden Cities regional finals on Saturday, May 10, 2025, with the final being played on June 7, 2025. Last year, only Torquay entered. This year, Taw Vale have already entered, Braunton and Newton Abbott plan to enter and it is hoped that other clubs will join them.
  • The Devon Premier Pairs for the Julia Chadwick Trophy
    This competition will take place on Saturday, March 29 on BBO. The three top pairs in this competition will represent Devon in the EBU Corwen Trophy on the weekend of May 31 & June 1, 2025. There are no entries yet. 
    This year, the EBU have introduced a nine-high version of the Corwen competition and have sent a list of the 600+ players in Devon that are eligible to compete. Following discussion in the meeting it was decided that we will aim to run the nine-high Corwen qualifier in 2026, with or without the main open-to-all qualifier.
  • Western League 2024–25
    In the third round on December 7, 2024, Devon played Herefordshire; Devon A & C won their matches, and Devon B were awarded a win for a no-show. In the fourth round on January 11, 2025, Devon played Avon and Devon A & B won their matches. Current standings for the A, B & C teams are 2nd, 3rd & 4th, respectively. The next match is on Saturday, February 1, 2025 against Somerset.
  • Tollemache qualifier
    This took place on the weekend of November 9–10, 2024 on RealBridge, with a Devon team of Jim Grant (captain), Sam Anoyrkatis, Alex Maddocks, Jacek Pietrzycki, Willie Hamilton, Peter Wood, Ian Walsh, Jesper Rundin, Sally Anoyrkatis, Venetia Anoyrkatis, Dave Strawbridge, and Doug Dunn. Unfortunately, the team did not progress to the final this year, and Jim sent a very comprehensive match report, which was circulated to the committee prior to the meeting. The committee would like to thank the selectors and the team and wish them all the best for next year.
  • No Fear Bridge Pairs 
    The second of these events will take place on Sunday, May 11, 2025 at Meldon Village Hall, near Okehampton. JC, JM, NM & LT will attend. The catering options are to make lunch in-house as we did for the first event in October, in which case we will need more help, or to buy in sandwiches. It is likely that the cost to players will be £10 per person, details to follow. 

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, in particular the Devon Club Teams of Eight.

8. Website & Social Media Update 

  • In the last couple of meetings, the idea of having a DBA Facebook page has been discussed. However, on reflection, it seems sensible to streamline our online presence before we consider other social media accounts.  
    Currently, there are four websites under the DBA umbrella; the main DBA website supported by Ruth, and then three Bridgewebs sites, one each for the Eastern section, the North Section, and the DBA Results. The latter was set up just over a year ago to allow TDs to upload competition results without the need to send Ruth a file to upload. 
    Now that the Eastern League has folded, Nigel Richardson will run the league and the John Woolcott weekend from the Devon Results Bridgeweb site, and the Eastern Section Bridgewebs site will close once this is established. 
    It was also suggested that new North Devon content could in the future be uploaded to the Devon Bridgewebs site, with this site eventually becoming the only Devon site. We would then have one website for all Devon activity, on a platform which is easy to navigate for those wishing to upload content    .

9. Any Other Business  

  • There was none.

13. Future Meetings

  • The next DBA central committee meeting will be on Tuesday March 11, 2025 at 10am on Zoom. 

The meeting ended at 11.05am.

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