I cannot believe another month has passed us by. It has been non-stop for the NSBC Team. The highlight of the month has to be the NSBC Festival of Bridge with 1296 boards dealt, $7,100 prize money, 366 entries, 220 mouths fed - the team have been very busy. On behalf of the Committee and all the members, well done to Mike, Gary, Sue, Josh, Ronnie and Matt - you do us all proud. I would also like to thank our Sponsors, Two Men and Truck, Fixed Income Solutions, Watermark Residences and TBIB Insurance - without their support our Festival would not be the success it was - THANK YOU from us all.
It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that Fiona Lavery has resigned from her post of Director & Administration Assistant - teaching co-ordinator. Fiona started with supervisory roles in April 2022, and then took over from Kay to look after the Beginner Bridge in January 2023. Fiona, was a breath of fresh air, always smiling, modernising our teaching curriculum and encouraging and supporting new bridge players into the Supervised and then Rookie sessions. Fiona, you will be missed by the NSBC Team and all your students. I am pleased to announce that Sue Crompton will take on the Beginner Bridge administration function, I think Sue will do an amazing job.
Caz Forbes who has been doing the Newsletter for the past 6 months has also asked for us to find a replacement. Caz has decided to put her efforts into a new role with a Golf Committee at Terrey Hills Golf Club. Caz and her daughter Bronte had big shoes to fill taking over from Kevin and based on all of your feedback, they did a great job. Many thanks and best of luck.
The Club has done well in June, exceeding budgeted numbers. Jo (our Treasurer) is still in “out back” Western Australia managing the finances via Starlink Satellite. Terry is back from Texas and has had a handover for the Secretary role and will also be heading up the Reserve Fund Sub Committee. Mike and I are looking at solutions for the Afternoon winter sunlight issue at The Willis - we hope to have some solution very soon. Ian has been battling bronchitis but is still soldiering on with the Sponsorship Committee, this is now up and running.
A new Director Portal was rolled out to the Directors this month, this is an internal system to assist with consistent communications, systems to record their sessions, and emergency contacts - should this be required. Together with this Portal we have also rolled out Workplace Health and Safety training to all staff. Part of this system will replace the old spreadsheet that F2F Directors completed after each session and Mike inputs into the system, currently, running in parallel. After the "bedding in" process the old Daily Director Sheets will be replaced and we will be one step closer to removing double entry of information.
We have also migrated the 6 email addresses that Mike managed to the new the single manager@northshorebridgeclub.com.au. If you can all add these new email addresses to your contacts on your phone and computer then that will help prevent emails going to junk. Not only does the email address look like it belongs to our club, we have rolled out admin@north... which belongs to Sue, I have president@north...- so the lucky person who takes over from me has all the history in the mailbox. The same goes for the Treasurer and Secretary roles. The removal of personal emails to log into NSBC Systems goes a long way to putting in place a good Succession Plan.
The project to ensure that members’ data was correct and up to date in Pianola has been completed as best as we could, as this requires all members to help and some of you didn't respond. We updated 286 dates of birth - but we still have 59 members without one. We updated 247 mobile numbers, but are still missing mobile numbers for 115 members. But the most important part is the Emergency Contact Information, even though we updated 338 emergency contacts we are still missing emergency contact details for 768 of you. As part of our Workplace Health and Safety program, should something happen at the Club or Online - our Directors will look up your Emergency Contact Details and call your contact. If you do not have a contact number in the Emergency contact field in Pianola, there is nothing that we can do! You can log into Pianola or complete this form add we will add for you.
This month, I would like to thank June Straw. June has been volunteering at NSBC for over 10 years, June has helped out with the beginner classes and supervised & practice sessions. June was a Director for NSBC, she would direct large sessions and with even 27 tables, always willing to play in. June is also responsible for the date loaf that some of you may have tasted at congresses. Always willing to bake and lend a hand - thank you June.
Lastly, I am pleased to announce that Improver Bridge Lessons are starting back Face to Face. We are trialling this with John Newman doing two lessons in July at East Lindfield. Johno will teach you what to do with 2 x suited hands on Friday 12th July at 1pm and Getting the Defence on Track on Friday 26th July at 1pm. The lessons are 2 hours long and will involve the lesson and play. Please support these lessons and if successful we will continue with more F2F lessons.
Til next time, stay safe and warm, I hope to see you online or at the Club soon.
Shaz
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