No. 50 Series 6 December 2017 To all our Members Bah Humbug……..Deck the halls Please come and help any time after 1.00pm Thurs- day 7 December 2017, to deck our own halls and bring some festive spirit to our club. All hands on deck (pardon the pun!)…. Come and join us any time after 1.00pm Thursday 4 January 2018, to undeck our halls. Many hands make light work….. ’Tis the season to be jolly ..... Our staff team, Damien and Margaret work hard to keep the wheels of our club turning smoothly. Let’s show our appreciation through a donation to their Christmas box. It will be available from Wednesday 29 November 2017 to Monday 18 December 2017. Sleigh bells ring, Are you listening….. Get ready for the Festive Season and sign up for our Festive Swiss Pairs the evening of Wednesday 20 December 2017 …..mince pies for everyone! Fa la la la la, la la la la - Don we now our gay apparel ..... also known as Festive Teams!!! Date for your diary – Friday 29 December 2017. To book your place for this extravaganza, check the members notice board for the booking sheet. The evening will commence with mulled wine or a non- alcoholic beverage for our drivers followed by some bridge with many prizes. There will be a break in play for a Festive Feast served with a glass of wine or a non-alcoholic beverage - all for £12.00! Susan Chapple Congratulations David & Anne Griffiths - see P9 Nicki Traynor & Lynn Fullerton - see P8 Alice Cowieson & Elizabeth Johnston - see P9 Christmas Closure Dates The Club will be closed over the Festive season on Monday & Tuesday 25th & 26th December & Monday & Tuesday 1st & 2nd January. There will be no Thursday session on 28th December. Remember always to check the web- site before leaving for a session in case it has been cancelled for inclement weather or some other reason. Christmas Charity 2017 This year our charity donations will go to HeartStart. You can put one Christmas Card on the Noticeboard for all to see and put a donation in the box. Or you can leave lots of cards for your friends in the club and still put a dona- tion in the box! HeartStart helped us with training and the purchase of our de- fibrillator and we felt we should give something back to them. The Board did make a donation at the time but we felt that members would also like to thank them in this way. Please give generously! ******* Neil's Farewell On his last day as Club Steward, Social Conven- or, Susan Chapple, thanked Neil for all his work in the last three years and presented him with a cheque from the Board and the cash raised by the membership. The Board and members all wished him well in his new job down in Manchester. As Neil left he handed over to our new steward, Damien Murray. Damien is known to many of us as he is already a member and has played in the club on numer- ous occasions in the past couple of years. We all con- gratulate Damien on his appointment and look forward to his time with us. 2 Board Notes The following matters were discussed at the November meeting of the Board of Directors: DBC received an invitation for three teams to take part in the Russell French run by CD. A President’s team, Airlie winners and a Bronze team led by Nicki & Lynn were the ones chosen for this competition. A member’s letter raised the subject of heating again. Sylvia is to mon- itor the effectiveness of the heating with the data logger again and TDs will be reminded to use the thermometers as a guide when deciding whether the doors should be open. The thermometers will be moved around the playing rooms to further inform. Joan gave a report on the appointment of our new steward, Damien Murray. There had been 16 applications which had been then whittled down to a short leet and after interviews Damien has been appointed. Alice thanked Joan, Susan and Sheila for the efficient way they had made the appointment which meant there had been no gap in provi- sion. The Board are delighted with the choice of Damien and wish him ever success. Nicki sent in her final membership renewal report showing 241 mem- bers as of 12th November. There had been 18 who did not renew mostly due to relocation or health problems. There had been 8 new members. A further two new members’ applications were accepted, Jim Bain & Andy Collins, bringing the total now to 243. The num- ber of new members joining over the past year has been very encour- aging. Work continues on updating the Board job descriptions. Sylvia will look at all the lists that have come in from the directors and check for any doubling up or omissions. The Board discussed the matter of awarding Honorary Life Member- ships. A few suggestions had come in from members of recipients but after some discussion it became clear that no matter what criteria were used there were too many in the club who had served for some years on the Board, been long standing members and so on. To single out any individual was too difficult and could be rather divisive. It was agreed that no Honorary Life Memberships would be awarded at the moment. It was agreed that a bell would be fixed to the Steward’s flat so that he could be summoned in an emergency. The old bell had been removed some time ago 3 Historical Snippets Back Again I had been describing DBC’s history based on old minutes and Slams and had covered the period 1945 (the year DBC was founded) to 1986. I now wish to resurrect this series. However to set the scene, I thought I would begin with a repeat of my earlier article about bridge in Dundee before 1945 Bridge in Dundee before DBC When Dundee Bridge Club was founded in 1945, it began its life with 120 members. This is strong evidence that Bridge was not new to Dundee at that point in time – 120 people interested in Bridge did not spring from nowhere. Fur- ther evidence in one of our cupboards was a small cup entitled ‘Dundee War Charities Bridge League’ with dates from 1939-45. More recently, I gained access to a website called Findmypast (belonging to DC Thomsons) which included scanned pages from over 240 old newspa- pers. Not surprisingly, the Courier and the Telegraph featured in this list. This was to provide a fascinating glimpse into the development of Bridge in Dundee. As many of you may know, the game of Bridge was a developed from whist in three stages – first, Russian Whist (or Biritch – the origin of the word ‘Bridge’) invented around 1886, then Auction Bridge whose first rules appeared in 1904 and then, our current version, Contract Bridge developed by Harold Stirling Van- derbilt in USA in 1925. The first mention of competitive Bridge in Dundee is to be found in the Courier of 7 April 1928 with a description of an Auction Bridge drive which had taken place in the Dundee Unionist Association in Albert Square. [For readers from south of the border ‘Unionist’ was the former name of the Scottish Con- servatives.] This tournament had been the last of the winter programme. It is possible, therefore, that the season had started in autumn of 1927. The event was for mixed pairs but a number of the ladies played as gentlemen suggesting that even in these days there was a predominance of the fairer sex. There were 21 tables. Over the next few years, Bridge was mentioned sporadically in the local papers, eg, 21 December 1929 in the Telegraph there was an item about a Dun- dee Dental Hospital Bridge & Whist Drive which raised £71 for the Hospital’s funds. The game’s political base widened. There was reference to the Ladies Bridge Club of the Dundee Liberal Association having an event in the Liberal party’s Reform St rooms (Courier 15 February 1930). News items relating to Bridge in Albert Square and Reform St began to appear reasonably regularly in both Dundee papers. However in the 20s and early 30s, Bridge articles must have been about Auction Bridge in light of two news items in the Courier in early 1934. Introduction of Contract Bridge to Dundee 23 January 1934. A company of about 80 Bridge enthusiasts attended a demonstration of Contract Bridge given in Kidd’s Rooms Dundee by Miss Isabel WP Duncan, an associate member of Culbertson’s Studios, London. (cont.) 4 Miss Duncan dealt with ‘correct bidding and play’ including a new feature of doubling. This visit had been arranged by Burns & Harris (the local printing company). 27 February 1934. The first Contract Bridge (duplicate) tournament to be held in Dundee was played in Kidd’s Rooms with 80 people present. This was arranged by Mr Arthur Burns [Presumably of Burns & Harris] and run by Miss IWP Duncan. The winning ‘YZ’ couple was Mrs JB Taylor & Miss Ferrier with a score of 2680 and the winning ‘AB’ couple Mr AJ Paterson & Mrs Nicoll with a score of 4410. The terms YZ and AB were used to indicate the different direc- tions. NS and EW had not been applied at this point. Contract Bridge was beginning to take off - 24 April 1934 (Telegraph) a Contract Bridge competition was organised by the Dundee Liberals - but Auction Bridge had not died.