Official website of the Suffolk Contract Bridge Association
This is a record of the debate and decisions the SCBA took as a response to the EBU's plan which is now more widely known as 'Universal Membership'. The information and files here faithfully represent the material provided at the time leading up to the vote at an extraordinary meeting of the EBU in June 2008.
Some details of the documents found here may have been amended and anyone seeking definitive current information whould look at the EBU and SCBA main sites on Universal Membership.
The English Bridge Union is seeking to change the way it is funded from a subscription model to one where players of duplicate bridge at clubs pay according to how much they play.
The Suffolk committee is broadly in favour of the proposal.
Now widely known as Pay-to-Play (P2P), the EBU has engaged in a long consultation with members, counties and clubs. The EBU recently (20-March-2008) summarised their intentions in the proposal upon which counties will vote.
The Suffolk association understands clubs will be conducting their own meetings to decide on their response to the proposal. In a circular to all clubs, the EBU wrote that comments and decisions should be referred through the county association and the SCBA has prepared a statement outlining their position.
The proposal is a complete revision of funding for bridge in England and affects county finances as well. The association is very interested in comments from clubs concerning its own funding options, details of which are described in the policy statement.
On 4-June the EBU held an extraordinary General Meeting to vote on the proposal. That motion was carried by 52 votes to 31 with two abstentions (and one voter absent).
Counties have varying numbers of votes according to size. As mentioned earlier, Suffolk has two and these were cast in favour of the change. You can see how all the counties voted on the EBU website.
For each affiliated club, this is how the future will look:
One more club, which had a meeting earlier this week, has decided to support the EBU proposal, making a clear majority in favour.
In view of the support of clubs and that of individual members shown at the county AGM, the SCBA committee voted overwhelmingly in favour of the EBU Proposal. Suffolk will therefore cast its two votes in favour of the motion to adopt P2P at the EBU EGM on 4-June.
Since the meeting described below, two more clubs have come out in favour of the EBU proposal (one originally recorded as undecided, one as whose views were unknown). The current reckoning is therefore:
On Sunday 18-May-2008 Suffolk held a meeting for club representatives with an agenda to receive views and feedback on P2P from clubs and their members. The minutes are now available (as a PDF). At the meeting the state of the clubs was:
Additionally, at the AGM a motion was debated:
This association believes that the English Bridge Union Pay-to-Play scheme is ill considered and likely to have a detrimental effect on organised duplicate bridge. The SCBA shareholder should therefore be mandated to vote against the motion at the EBU meeting on 4th June.
This motion was defeated, five votes for and an overwhelming majority of those present (approximately 40 eligible voters) against.
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 Pauline Hanson 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.
There are many individuals on both sides who take the future of English bridge seriously. One of them, Peter Hasenson (a well received bridge author and, it seems, an EBU board member), has expended considerable effort in critising the proposal, leading him to set up http://www.sayno2p2p.co.uk a website containing what he has discovered and feedback received. He has also written to Suffolk alerting us to his concerns. The EBU has replied to these and both documents are listed below.
Peter Hasenson's letter to Suffolk.
Peter Stocken's reply.
Ned Paul is a bridge writer and teacher (who on occasions, has even employed our own Jonathan Green). He is very involved in club bridge and was a representative at the London Metropolitan BA's meeting to assess the sentiments of its clubs. He wrote an open letter to the LMBA and its affiliated clubs in which he outlined his opposition to the proposal and included a number of constructive counter-proposals.
I have transcribed Ned Paul's letter for display on this site. Note that its layout does not intimate it is an official SCBA document - it just makes it easier to read.
Master copies of the EBU documents can be found on their document site in the section 'EBU Plan'.
A fuller description of the documents mentioned above:
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.