April 2016

Bridge helping people stay healthy and active into their 90s

BBC Woman's Hour on Radio 4 on Thursday 21st April looked at how women in their 90s have managed to stay healthy and active. Two interviewees from Birmingham cited bridge as one of the biggest influences on their prolonged good health, noting both the benefits of keeping the mind active, and also the social benefits of playing bridge after the death of their husbands.

The interview is available on the BBC website for a limited time - scroll to 15:00 for the start of the interview (which lasts around six minutes).

If you know someone - of any age - who would like to learn then please refer them to the map on the EBU website, which shows all affiliated clubs and EBUTA teachers in the country. They can then locate their local teacher or club and enquire about lessons.

Interviews such as this not only show the significance of bridge to people in this demographic, but also the importance of continuing to look at how bridge offers social and cognitive benefits to people of all ages, and how the game can be used to provide benefits to society.

The EBED Sim Pairs event, which takes place in the first week of May, will be raising funds to help the charity undertake work relating to the social and health benefits linked to playing bridge, including combatting social isolation and cognitive decline. Clubs which are participating can be seen on the EBU's sims pages - click on the date in question for a list of registered clubs.

Changes to charges for club teacher courses

English Bridge Education and Development runs Club Teacher Training courses which help all bridge clubs to ‘grow their own’ membership through an integrated teaching programme. The purpose of this course is to provide basic training for club members who are prepared to offer a teaching programme at their club.

Since 2010, the EBU has offered to pay for one free place for its affiliated clubs, every 2 years, on the Club Teacher Training course.

Through EBED, the EBU intends to invest in producing new educational material, with the aim of helping people to learn how to play bridge more quickly and easily and inspire them to join Clubs. This is an objective that the EBU has been told by Members should be of the highest priority to safeguard the future of our game. To help EBED, and EBU, finance this, the EBU is rebalancing its financial support to teacher training in Clubs by replacing ‎the one free place scheme with a standard discount of 20% for all teaching courses booked only by affiliated Clubs.

These new arrangements will take effect for all Club Teacher Training courses booked on or after 1 September 2016, and the discount will apply to all bookings received from, invoiced to, and paid by, an affiliated club. All other bookings are to remain at the full price.