Stuart Staveley

We are sad to report that Dr Stuart Staveley (Vice President of the EBU) has passed away. He was very much involved with the EBU in the old days when it was in Thame – even before it was at 15B High Street. He and his first wife Ann used to run the EBU from their living room.

After retiring Dr Staveley and his second wife went to live in Scotland – Strathcarron, Ross-shire.

A full obituary will be added here later this week.

Tournament Focus - Issue III

The third issue of Tournament Focus, written especially for our tournament player, is now available to read on-line.

In each issue, we hope to provide you with information on our future events, updates from the Tournament Committee, and articles of interest to our many tournament players.
Since the past two editions, members have commented that the newsletter was very hard to read as a PDF, so we have worked on creating a new on-line version for you to enjoy. We hope you enjoy the new look!

We look forward to your feedback and ideas for future contributions and articles in our next newsletter which will be hitting your inboxes in February 2010.

• Read here

Members Travel Insurance Offer

In association with the English Bridge Union, AIS Direct are pleased to provide a range of insurance products at competitive rates that are available to members and their families.

EBU Members taking out a policy before 31st December 2009 will enter a Prize Draw for a FREE policy renewal in 2010 - the winner to be announced in January 2010.

For more information, please view our own travel insurance website, here.

Laws Flow Charts

The L&E have produced some flow charts of common laws which we hope TDs will find useful.

■ Flow Charts

Paper Master Point processing at Aylesbury

From April 1st 2010, no paper master points issued will be accepted by the EBU, unless dated before then, and within the stated validity, with all updating being done from then onwards electronically. This will mean that the days of collecting small pieces of paper and then sending them to Aylesbury for us to count and manually update will be over.

However, we are about to enter a time of substantially increased work pressures at the Aylesbury office as we work to implement these and other IT system changes, and this may result in delays in processing master point claims.

We would therefore ask members who have paper master points that they wish us to put on their records to follow these requirements of submission to us carefully:-

1. Please use the correct forms. Note that the master point year ends on December 31st.
2. Please count your master points as requested and fill in the forms properly.
3. to see if your claim has been processed, click here. Enter your EBU number where requested; click on your rank to see individual registrations. Please allow at least four weeks for your claim to be processed, before contacting the office.

We will of course ensure that all paper master points are updated before we produce the results for the 2009 Master Point competitions. Due to the work pressures previously stated, there may be a delay in the final results. If that happens, apologies in advance!

Simultaneous Pairs Event Policy from April 1, 2010

EBU, WBF and EBL Simultaneous Pairs will only be open to affiliated clubs.

BGB Simultaneous Pairs events will attract a surcharge of £1 per player for ALL BGB sessions played in unaffiliated clubs. As for the Children In Need simultaneous, Overall Master Points will only be awarded by ECATS to EBU members in unaffiliated clubs if the results are uploaded electronically to ECatsBridge with the EBU number of such members included in the file in the correct format. These will subsequently be uploaded to the EBU by ECatsBridge once the overall results are known and the Master Points will be credited accordingly.

All other licensed simultaneous events are being reviewed and a policy will be announced in early 2010.

AGM Results

As members may know, the Annual General Meeting of the English Bridge Union is taking place today (Wednesday October 7th) in London.

The election results were announced at 3.30 p.m. and they were as follows:-

	Directors Elected	Number of votes received
1.	Sally Bugden	71
2.	Andrew Petrie	69
3.	Michael Hill	65
4.	Graham Jepson	64
5.	Jeremy Dhondy	59
6.	Martin Pool	58
7.=	Jeff Morris	55
7.=	Malcolm Oliver	55
9.	Alan Nelson	54
10.	John Carter	53

Peter Stocken and Suzanne Gill were nominated but just missed out on being elected with 46 and 40 votes respectively.

There being no other candidates for the roles, the following remained in their positions:

Chairman - Sally Bugden

Vice Chairman - Andrew Petrie

Treasurer - Michael Hill


Voting took place and the following members were elected:-

Laws & Ethics Committee

Two nominations were received, for two places, so no election required.

Mike Amos and Jeremy Dhondy were therefore re-elected for a further three-year term of office expiring in 2012.

Selection Committee

Four nominations have been received for the two vacancies. The top two persons duly elected will serve for a three year term of office expiring in 2012.

	Number of votes received
Sally Brock	57
Peter Baxter	39
David Muller	25
Heather Bakhshi	24

Baxter beat Muller after a tie and a run-off vote.

Tournament Committee

Two nominations were received, for two places, so no election required.

Alan Nelson and Addis Page were therefore re-elected for a further three-year term of office expiring in 2012.

Richard Currie

It is with great sadness that we inform you that Richard Currie passed away peacefully in his sleep on Saturday 19th September at the Phyllis Tuckwell hospice. His parents, Erica and Douglas, were with him.

Richard was the favourite bridge partner of many and not just of members at Farnham Bridge Club. Those who were privileged to share a part of his short life have been given the opportunity to know a generous, kind man with a large heart and great sense of humour, who unstintingly gave of himself in every way. He was a 'star' both at and away from the bridge table who looked after his bridge playing partners, team mates and opponents with the same selfless and helpful attitude. Both he and his partner were notorious for their rendition of EHAA which put their opponents playing skills to the test - a system which I am sure many will be pleased to see the back of!

Those who played regularly with him had the unique opportunity of sharing in some of his successes whilst following others with interest and no-one can replace him in our hearts.

Richard's funeral service will be held at St Thomas-on-the-Bourne church, Frensham Road, Farnham GU9 8HA on Monday 5th October at 12 noon. There will be a private cremation for family only later in the day.

AGM Nominations

The following are the nominations for the AGM on the 7th October 2009.

Nominations received as at 16th September 2009 (closing date).

Board

Twelve candidates have been nominated and have agreed to stand. As such, there will need to be an election for the ten positions available.

• Sally Bugden
• John Carter
• Jeremy Dhondy
• Suzanne Gill
• Michael Hill
• Graham Jepson
• Jeff Morris
• Alan Nelson
• Malcolm Oliver
• Andrew Petrie
• Martin Pool
• Peter Stocken

Officers

• Sally Bugden – Chairman
• Andrew Petrie – Vice-Chairman
• Michael Hill – Treasurer

Tournament Committee

The election this year is for two positions serving a three year term of office expiring in 2012 – no election required.

• Alan Nelson
• Addis Page

Selection Committee

The election this year is for two positions serving a three year term of office expiring in 2012.

• Heather Bakhshi
• Peter Baxter
• Sally Brock
• David Muller

Laws & Ethics Committee

The election this year is for two positions serving a three year term of office expiring in 2012 – no election required.

• Mike Amos
• Jeremy Dhondy

Promotion

Congratulations to the following TD’s who have been successfully promoted:

Gordon Rainsford to become a National Tournament Director.

David Stevenson to become a National Tournament Director.

Neil Morley to be promoted to a National Tournament Director.

Martin Lee to be promoted to a Senior Congress Tournament Director.