Tournament Reporting

No sooner had we published the new tournament report form required by NZBridge than they decided to update it! 

The new form is available here.  Tournament organisers are requested to complete the form and forward it to NZBridge following all official tournaments run by the Club.

Training for Club Directors

 

NZBridge Newsletter

The latest newsletter from the Chair of NZBridge is available here.

NZBridge AGM 2026

The NZBridge Annual General Meeting will take place on Saturday 13th June at the Wellington Bridge Club.

For those who are interested, the paperwork is available here.

Online Winter Bridge

 

Wellington Region Junior League

The following has been kindly contributed by Murray Lobb

HEY JUNIORS – WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR BRIDGE?

Wellington Regional Bridge run a Junior League throughout the year. It is a great way to improve your Bridge by playing against players from all over the region.

Further it is a great way to meet players from other Clubs and form friendships and rivalries that will last for years.

Don’t let the feeling that you are not ready yet stop you, there were first year players that performed well last year.

The Junior League is an initiative of the Wellington Region to encourage Junior Grade players to participate in Junior Grade Tournaments in the Wellington Region. Points are also awarded for playing in Multigrade and Intermediate Tournaments.

You can read all the details and Terms and Conditions for Junior League 2026 here.

Go on – give it a go. Who knows, you could be the Wellington Junior League champion for 2026.

Club & Tournament Director Training courses for 2026

The following information has been provided by NZ Bridge:

• Programme for Tournament Directors training courses 2026
• Programme for Club Directors training courses 2026
• Details for Certificate of Achievement

The Club is always on the look out for new Directors, so please consider giving this a go. You don’t have to be an expert player - you just need to be good at retaining information and able to handle situations in a confident and sympathetic manner.

NZ Bridge Regional Championships 2026 - Wellington Region Trials

These trials select teams to represent the Wellington Region in the Open, Senior, Women’s and Intermediate grades.

Key dates, trial information, and registration deadlines are included on the flyer below, with further detail available on the website.

Registration and event information can be found at:

https://wellingtonregionbridge.org.nz/-regional-team-championships (the website will be updated as details are confirmed).

Please consider entering these trials - in particular if you’re eligible for the Intermediate and Women’s teams. Don’t be put off if you have not previously competed at regional level: this is a good opportunity to get involved.

For further information please contact John Donbavand.

Rankings

In the national "Top 20" Player Rankings as at 31st December:

• John Donbavand ranked 7th in the Life Master category
• Anthea Black ranked 13th and Graham Cheater 20th in the Master category
• Murray Lobb ranked 14th in the Local Master category
• Shelley Ross ranked 2nd in the Club Master category

As of the same date Graeme Norman sits in 106th place in the updated All Time Masterpoints Earners list with 3250.82 points.

Murray Lobb, Craig Jackson, Viv Gray, Shelley Ross and Gillian van Raalte all graduated to Intermediate Grade as of 1st January.

Congratulations everybody - and especially to Shelley: a great result.

Loveblock Pairs - Results

Novice Grade

Liz Campbell and Roz King - 7th⭐⭐⭐

Mixed Grade

Graeme Norman and Carol Hogan - 10th⭐⭐

Lorraine Gaffaney and Sue Osborne - 18th⭐⭐

Open Restricted

Anthea Black and Naciye Bagci - 43rd

Kevin Walker and Helen Walker - 76th

Overall Placings (in the top 100)

Graeme and Carol - 42nd

Anthea and Naciye - 62nd

Lorraine and Sue - 66th

These are nationwide results - many congratulations to everyone, with a special shout out to Liz and Roz for a fantastic result in the Novice Grade.

NZ Bridge Foundation

Message from the Trustees of the NZ Bridge Foundation

The NZ Bridge Foundation was created in 2009 to further bridge in NZ with a special focus on supporting youth bridge and helping clubs, especially those with very limited resources, to enhance bridge in their community. The Foundation is keen to make bridge players aware of our purpose and to gain greater support from amongst the wider bridge community.

With our 5 volunteer trustees and the NZ Bridge Secretary, we dispense grants from a small fund each quarter that comes from interest earned and our annual NZ wide bridge tournament. The current trustees are Dwayne Crombie (Akarana), Liz Rowe (Otago), Denis McKinlay (Wellington), Richard Solomon (Te Aroha), Jonathan Westoby (Auckland).

Understandably we don’t have the funds to support routine club maintenance costs but can help on special occasions. Examples of grants include the national youth bridge weekend, support for youth players to the National Congress and sending youth teams to Canberra for the ABF youth events. In the last year, we have also made partial grants to support the Marton Bridge Club, Wellington Bridge Club, Waitemata Bridge Club, Palmerston North Bridge Club, Motueka Bridge Club, Karori Bridge Club and the Feilding Bridge Club.

As a registered charity, all donations meet the IRD’s rules for a tax complying donation.

More information about the Foundation, how to apply for funds that meet our priorities, and our grant cycle can be found by searching for the NZ Bridge site - Foundation page. We are happy to give feedback about the suitability of an application.

Information from NZBridge

The following documents have recently been received from NZBridge:

World Bridge Federation: Executive Committee Report 
World Bridge Federation: Zones Summary
World Bridge Federation: Support for National Bridge Organisations

Minutes of the NZ Bridge Board meeting held 9 September 2025

Chairman's Newsletter No.5

As you will see from the Board Meeting Minutes, John Donbavand has been appointed to the Wellington Regional Committee - congratulations John.

Loveblock Pairs

This year's Loveblock Pairs will take place on Friday 17th October, starting at 7pm.

The entry fee is $15.00 per person. This cost includes a booklet discussing in detail each hand played during the evening - regrettably, however, this will be available only after play!

Before play there will be a pot luck dinner, commencing at 6pm. Please indicate on the sign on sheet on the top table what type of dish you would like to bring (or if you prefer you may pay an additional $10.00 as an alternative to contributing food).

This nationwide Pairs event gives players the opportunity to take part in a national event at their own club. 

As in the last 3 years, this event is sponsored by Loveblock Wines, a Marlborough organic producer of quality wines. 

Online Intermediate Lessons - August

The NZBridge Teaching and Learning Committee has organised online Intermediate lessons – suitable for those who have played for a few years.

Cost: $20 for a set of 3 lessons or $8 for a single lesson

Where: Register and pay through HelloClub and you will receive the RealBridge link...

https://nzbridge.helloclub.com/public/event/6876f6bb705af2ca59a20c50/intermediate-lessons

Time: Lessons are 4-6pm Sundays, repeated 7-9pm the following Tuesdays. Log on at least 15 minutes early, check your camera and microphone, as you will be playing the practice hands.

Schedule:

Sunday 10th & Tuesday 12th August - Escaping 1NT Doubled
Sunday 17th & Tuesday 19th August - Interference over our 1NT
Sunday 24th & Tuesday 26th August - Competing over their 1NT

Further lessons in September/October will be notified soon.

(Thanks to Helen Walker for spotting this)

Regional Championships 2026 (and beyond)

If you aspire to selection for the Wellington team to compete in next year's Regional Championships you may be interested in this Bulletin from NZ Bridge:

NZ Bridge AGM

Chris Farrow and I represented the club at the NZ Bridge AGM held at the Wellington Bridge Club on Saturday 13th June.

Points of interest included the following:

• NZ Bridge is still running at a (small) loss, despite passing on increased costs to clubs: cost-cutting measures are being examined "line by line" on a monthly basis in an effort to ensure that the organisation can break even by the end of the current financial year
• a proposal to prepare a 5-year financial plan was agreed: this should be available to clubs by the end of this year
• of NZ Bridge's over 12,000 members:
• 1,047 (8.2%) are Open players
• 4,230 (33.1%) are Intermediate
• 7,505 (58.7%) are Juniors
• NZ Bridge is now required to provide a Statement of Service Performance as part of its audited financial statements
• the "Toolkit" is available - approximately 75% complete - on the NZ Bridge website portal
• Also available through the portal are a range of teaching materials.  Teachers are being kept up to date via a dedicated Teaching and Learning WhatsApp group
• this year's Congress will be held in Palmerston North (please refer to previous separate post here)
• the new NZ Bridge website is not yet ready
• a report on the Tournament Review is expected shortly: this is expected to remove all restrictions on clubs relating to the scheduling and delivery of tournaments.

The papers for the meeting can be found here in the unlikely event that anyone wants to read them in detail.

If anyone would like further information please do not hesitate to contact either me or Chris Farrow.

NZBridge Website Update

STOP PRESS

We have had an update from NZB and it seems that the roll back to the old website has been successful and we are once again able to access the site.

 
The only outstanding issue is around tournament entries made since last Thursday. If you have entered any tournament, please check you are in fact registered. If you are not, please contact the Club hosting the tournament.

It is expected to have the old website fully up and running before the weekend.

I previously advised (here) that the new NZBridge website had gone live.

This morning NZBridge have told us that they are experiencing serious issues with the new site including loss of a number of functions such as tournament entry management, membership management and congress entries.

As a result, the decision has been taken to wind things back to the old website. This will enable the new one to be worked on (offline) and tested properly before going live.  There is no time frame for this.

The rollback will take place today (Thursday) during which time there will be no website access.

The site will be restored to where it was as of Thursday morning last week.  You may need to log in with your former passwords to access the site. 

The NZBridge Secretary (email: Secretary@nzbridge.co.nz) can reset members' passwords for the old site (please don't request this unless absolutely necessary - the poor man has enough on his plate as it is).

Please note that, for a short time, results will not be uploaded to either our website or the NZBridge website from last Thursday.  This will include any masterpoints changes.

NZBridge Website Update

We have received a lengthy email from NZ Bridge concerning the forthcoming update of their website.

The message is reproduced here.

NZ Bridge - Board Vacancy

The following message has been received from Alan Morris (Chairperson of NZ Bridge):

Following the recently announced resignation of Anna Kalma from the Board of New Zealand Bridge we are keen to bring a fresh face or faces to the table.

We are fortunate to have a broad range of skills ranging from governance, finance, commercial management, communication and research, rules, and regulations.

Bridge in this country, like elsewhere around the world, is at a watershed moment.

The game has been around for a longtime and over that period we have seen the demographic age. Average age anecdotally is close to 80.

We are now experiencing players exiting for a variety reasons. Whilst Clubs are doing a wonderful job getting people into lessons our retention rate is sub-optimum.

We can go with the flow or be progressive and explore new opportunities.

Those opportunities include being recognised as a sport and all the associated benefits, raising our profile and engagement with youth, broadening our engagement and connecting with the large number who play social bridge.

Also recognising the quarter acre dream is a dream of the past. We are seeing living and work life changing and we need to adapt.

 We are keen to consider people who will bring fresh ideas. People who have skills and experience in the fields of sponsorship, fundraising, sports management, lobbying.

People who are willing to work within a close-knit team and who will support collective decision making.

Whilst we are keen explore new ideas and creative thinking, we are keen to continue to support a team ethos.

If this is, you and you are keen to give something back to the game I am keen to hear from you.

Our constitution allows us to second people to the board.

My contact details are set out below or I can be contacted on allan.morris@nzbridge.co.nz