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Waikato Bays News from Anna Kalma
the sad result of collecting a session prize! Read on...
Results … sadly very little to report since the last regional round up for obvious reasons …
The last tournament in the region was held on the 14th March … and it was a happy occasion for this correspondent! Waihi hosted a field of 20 tables for their 8B Pairs and winners on the day were Anna Kalma (Te Aroha) and Lesley Quilty of Matamata.
It was run on the same weekend as the North Island Teams. So, thankfully, all the "guns" were missing …including my original partner who double booked himself which I only discovered when doing a casual perusal of the Wellington entry lists a couple of days prior to Waihi. Fill-in Lesley more than up to the task and we had two solid 60ish sessions to take home top prize.
Super sub, Lesley, and Anna
Upon discovering I had won the tournament, my absent partner magnanimously offered that Lesley keep the prize money! In response, I suggested he pay half my speeding fine which I received travelling to the event through the Karangahake Gorge!
Waihi also hosted the first round of the JH League (the Judith Howard League for those with less than 100A’s). This was won by Ross Stewart and Elaine Rayner of Hamilton who also got 3rd overall in the tournament.
Embracing technology part 1
Nick Cantlon, President of the Te Awamutu Club fills us in on how they have used technology to carry on lessons during the lockdown period.
Sally Whitaker, Te Awamutu tutor, at her station
"We started our lessons early this year beginning on 20th February so that people finished the lessons by mid May and could then have more time playing at Club sessions before the Christmas closedown.
The idea was to get them into the habit of coming to the club at least once per week, and cementing in so that they continued to do that once the lessons finished as well as improving their bridge. The lesson fee included club membership for the whole year to reinforce that.
We had a group of about 9 students, some absolute beginners, some who had a bit of exposure to bridge and some who had previously attended lessons but wanted to repeat them.We had decided to close the club on 23rd March, just before the official lockdown began.
By then we had completed Lesson 5. We were reluctant to stop the lessons and lose the learners, knowing that would mean them all having to start over again next year and so started thinking about how we could continue the lessons on- line. We missed the next week's lesson while we investigated. Some of us had previously used BBO, were not recent users nor very familiar with all the functionality, but knew that it had potential.
But how to present the lesson material? My daughter told me Zoom was a possibility. So I looked into that and saw the screensharing feature as a way of presenting the powerpoint slides. The teaching table options in BBO were explored and by the following week we were ready for a tentative start. There were some hiccups that first week as we got to grips with the technology. Some of the students grappled to get onto Zoom, all the practice boards being Board 1 with North the dealer, and the Zoom session ended after 40 minutes. But it worked well enough that we wanted to carry on.
The club agreed to fund a licence for Zoom so we had plenty of time, the deals got sorted and students got familiar with Zoom. As well as the weekly lesson, Sally held revision sessions where they went over the practice hands from previous lessons. Using Zoom she could coach the students and "Undo" their mistakes. These sessions were very valuable. We have just finished lesson 10 and will be having a short series of private tournaments with students and buddies before they are set loose in the world of BBO.
This way we hope to retain their interest and knowledge until we are able to return to club play. Our tutor has found the BBO/Zoom combo very useful for coaching the students as they play, but she can only supervise 1 table at a time. So,someone else takes a 2nd table. In some ways this is better than face to face at the club. She can see all the hands at once and talk people through what their bids mean, and what partner is telling them about her/his hand. We have had some dropouts but have retained a core of 5 new learners and a few of previous year's students who come for refreshers and practice.
All in all it has been great."
Embracing technology part 2
Zoom meetings for the Waikato Bays committee are nothing new – we adopted technology around 5 years ago and have monthly virtual meetings with just one annual face-to-face meeting.
However, over the lockdown we decided to change things up a bit … needed a theme – Jo suggested “staycation”.
In the very unlikely event that you cannot recognise any of the above, we have:
Rona Driscoll Anna Kalma
Jan Spaans Jo Simpson
Alan Dick Michael Neels (an actual picture of Michael...no fancy clothing..in fact, leave out "fancy"!)
So here we are in the “flesh” at our April zoom meeting. Jo looked the part chillaxing in her kimono with cocktail but we didn’t ask Mike Neels (bottom right) to stand up!
Hamilton update
Good to see Hamilton keeping their members informed … a 24 page ‘covid’ special newsletter sent out which also includes updates, Cynthia Clayton’s quizzes as well as a travel journal from one of their members who were struck down with Covid on their European travels.
http://www.hamiltonbridge.co.nz/newsletters/Current%20Newsletter.pdf
Embracing technology pt 3
Waikato Bays clubs are also embracing local bridge through Bridge Base Online (BBO). While we are constantly reviewing our offerings, we are currently hosting around 10 matches per week with local clubs taking on the management of their ‘club nights’.
If you are keen to play, let your club captain know and we can arrange for support or partnership assistance.
Check out www.waikatobays.bridge-club.org for further information and the current schedule.
Mt Maunganui and Tauranga clubs are running BBO tournaments for their members twice a week and are getting 20-25 tables at the moment but with the registered numbers growing, they expect a lot more tables on Friday. They are also emailing members about once a week to keep them up to date
Bugger
Ruth and the puddle!
Finally – upon receiving her session prize at Waihi… Ruth Sweatman of Tauranga returned to her seat only to have her hard earned wine topple off the chair next to her … she commented that “it summed up her day at the bridge table!” Good to see her partner Kay Wright saw the funny side as well!
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