Official website of the Suffolk Contract Bridge Association
For a simple introduction, read the short A Club Player's Guide to Universal Membership.
To revitalise bridge in England and involve more grass roots players, the EBU intends to make all club players members of the national body - hence Universal Membership (UM).
It is not our purpose here to explain the generality of how UM and Pay-to-Play (P2P) will work but to describe what is happening in Suffolk, especially those things which are particular to the county and what decisions the SCBA committee has taken so far.
Here you can find:
There will be many changes, not least of all how the EBU raises funds to support bridge. It is moving from a subscription base to one where each club player pays a small amount every time they play. Pay-to-Play (P2P) has attracted more attention than the overall plans for the future of bridge - unfortunate but perhaps to be expected in current times.
The debate about the principle and practicality of P2P came to a head with a vote of the shareholders of the EBU (the county associations) in June 2008. The change to funding was passed by 52 votes to 31; Suffolk has two votes which were both cast in favour of the proposal.
At that time the Suffolk Association set out how P2P would work locally and this has not changed in principle or detail. Suffolk set up a sub-committee and they produced a document describing the county's position [PDF] which was adopted by the full committee and remains true in all respects today.
Nevertheless, the EBU's changes markedly affect how Suffolk is funded. You can read how the county raises funds now and how this will change. This was sent out to club secretaries in October 2009.
The county association listened carefully to its member clubs and held a meeting that informed its voting decision in May last year. At that meeting the majority of clubs were in favour of the new proposals. Obviously opinions and club officers change and we urge you to keep us informed of your decisions - after all, the county association will be, and always has been, the sum of its clubs and its members. We hope you will be part of bridge in the future - and part of Suffolk.
The constituent counties of the EBU will adopt different courses after UM. This has always been true and is a result of the diversity of the counties. Some, for example those in metropolitan areas, had just one or two clubs and many EBU members, some, like ours, had relatively few EBU members and more clubs. Because the county subscription will disappear as a default, each county will have to make a choice how to replace it. Some will continue with that model, some will wholly depend on a county P2P component, some will do something in between.
The following give detail and context to how Suffolk will work:
The SCBA committee has established a working party to advise on factual matters and questions pertaining to the EBU document and receive recommendations from the involved parties:
01473 218366 01206 272351 01379 870291
All of the above are available to consult, receive opinions or represent the association at any club. You can send email or call them individually - by clicking on their name - or send a mail to the all together.
In addition is the regional representative for East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire) — you may contact her directly through your club or the SCBA.
Of course you can take any question or comment direct to the EBU.
is the regional representative for East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire) and she has issued a number of bulletins to clubs. Your club should have drawn your attention to these (though some have been of technical interest to scorers and the like). You can read them here:
See also What UM will mean to Suffolk members and clubs above.
Some of these are extracted from the EBU pages on UM and P2P for easy reference (see links below).
The EBU has set up a central page for UM and P2P matters at http://www.ebu.co.uk/pay2play. All current documents describing the process together with example submissions are listed, as are the plans the EBU has for revitalising bridge in England.
The EBU has set up a club committee (Suzanne Gill above is our regional representative) and they have a webpage explaining what they do and their composition and an email address: cc@ebu.co.uk.
As one might expect with a change of this import, there were strong feelings on both sides, both locally and nationally. The Suffolk committee actively collected opinions to inform its decision. You can read a description of the process leading up to the vote in June 2008.
There is quite a lot of detail on the website. Much of it concerns financial matters, how clubs and the county relate to each other after UM. For player guides, the best pages to read are:
See the UM homepage for links to all the material.
Any committee member will help you with questions on UM but we have a dedicated working party to answer and pursue problems.
Other than the pages on the debate in June 2008, all the others are kept up to date on matters of both advice and fact and the page history panel reflects that.
The EBU has set up a central page for UM and P2P matters at http://www.ebu.co.uk/pay2play. All current documents describing the process together with example submissions are listed, as are the plans the EBU has for revitalising bridge in England.
Specific links:
The EBU has set up a club committee ( is our regional representative) and they have a webpage detailing their composition and explaining what they do, their email address is cc@ebu.co.uk.