It’s a Wonderful Life

If you didn’t manage to watch it over Christmas, there is still time to enjoy “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the Frank Capra, James Stewart masterpiece which tells the story of poor Henry Potter and his fight against communism. Potter, a self-made man with a job, must tackle George Bailey, the head of the local KGB and his cohorts. 

Comrade Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, is introduced as a sixty-year-old draft dodger with no visible means of support, who lives with his parents in Bedford Falls. We see Bailey seduce Mary Hatch (played by Donna Reed) by pushing her into a swimming pool and then hiding her clothes. Mary falls for it, and they get married, with Bailey using his communist tricks to award them someone else’s house to live in which he steals with the help of a couple of Muppets

Potter fights back, and we even get to see a vision of the potential future when Bailey gets drunk and visits the fantastic looking Pottersville, only to wake up and find it was all a dream. Let’s face it, we would all prefer to go out for a night in Pottersville rather than Bedford Falls.

In the end Potter manages to prevail when Comrade Bailey is found to have been committing financial fraud on a huge scale and misappropriating other people’s money. However, there is a twist at the end, and Bailey’s commie buddies supply him with enough cash to bribe the bank examiners, which he does in his stolen house.

There, I’ve saved you the trouble of watching it again.

So, what has that got to do with North Shore Bridge Club? Absolutely nothing, it just popped into my head when I was looking for a title.

But it is a wonderful life, and good times for NSBC, so we should all be happy going into 2024 (just watch out for communists).

As I have said before, the club seems to run much better when I have absolutely nothing to do with it, which has been the case for the last couple of months. I had to go to the UK for a funeral in November which perfectly filled my calendar between two planned trips – one to Brisbane and another to New Zealand, where I am writing this from.

Having noticed that so many top bridge players in Sydney are originally from New Zealand (including of course our own Mike Prescott and Liam Milne), I thought I would pop over here to see if something in the air rubbed off on me. So far, no sign of anything.

I have played bridge once with some people we met on a cruise ship. One of them, from Queensland, who found out that we are from North Shore was full of praise for Mike and Gary Barwick as he plays online sometimes. Julie mentioned that I was the president and he asked what my name was again. “Nope, never heard of you.” he said, once again confirming my view that invisibility is a good thing.

Still, despite me doing absolutely nothing for the club, there has been an enormous amount going on. They even tell me some of it, but I suspect not everything. I will attempt to cover the things I have been told, but I will of course only manage to cover the things I have remembered, which is a much shorter list. Hopefully those reading this whose fantastic efforts are not recounted here will do me the favour of applying Hanlon’s Razor:

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

So here are (to the best of my recollection), some of the things going on recently:

• Caz Forbes has taken over the newsletter from Kevin Davies. This is her first one! Congratulations Caz, and thanks for everything Kevin!
• Shaz’s amazing finance system continues to automate the core functions of the club with small improvements being added all the time.
• One of those improvements is the Low Balance Reporting which makes it easier for you to know when your account balance is low and needs to be topped up. We used to run with many members unaware they were overdrawn and although everyone sorts their account out when they realise, we usually ran with thousands of dollars of debt. Since Shaz has put in the Low Balance Reporting and Sue Crompton has been chasing it up, our new record is $98.45.
• Shaz again (who else) has also set up Square, our new payments system (with Leo helping with the website part). The feedback so far has been really good, with only a few questions raised. The system is not only easier to use, it will also save the club thousands a year in bank fees.
• Sponsorships are a great thing for the club, but of course the amounts vary from time to time. Ian MacLaren is getting involved to help us find new sponsors.
• Employment law is an increasingly complex area. Our Treasurer, Rod Owen has found us a company, Employsure, who provide a service to help us stay the right side of this and ensure we are doing everything we can for our staff. Rod and Mike are in the process of setting all of this up which will give us a very solid basis to move forwards on as the laws inevitably change over the coming years.
• Rod has also been heavily involved in our ongoing discussions with New South Wales Bridge Association as they work towards splitting into a new governing body, Bridge New South Wales (BNSW) and a separate bridge club. More on this when we have more information on what it means for the us. Jake Andrew, our Vice-President, as you probably know is also very involved in the project but is sitting out on the discussions that are too difficult to have with a foot in both camps. I offered to teach him how to talk to himself, as I consider it one of my core skills, but he thinks it is better this way.

You’d think that would be enough, but as I am sure you are aware, we are also getting The Willis renovated. We will be re-opening on 8th January 2024, which is fantastic news!

The renovations aren’t the only thing, as this forces us into formalising the rental agreement that we have for The Willis. Mike has done a great job on negotiating this with input from Rod. We are now well placed to re-open and hopefully set up for many fun years of bridge there.

I’ll leave you with a joke from the 1970s.

I bumped into the vicar in our village, and he was very agitated. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“Some rascal has stolen my bike!” He replied.

I thought for a few seconds. “Almost certainly someone from the village.” I said, “Here is what you should do. On Sunday make a point of going through the Ten Commandments. When you get to ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’, have a good look around the room and see who looks guilty.”

“Brilliant idea!” He said.

I met him again the following week and asked how it had gone.

“I took your advice.” He replied

“And?”

“Well, I started on the Ten Commandments. But when I got to ‘Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery’ I remembered where I’d left my bike.”

Happy New Year! Enjoy your bridge!