Young Chelsea - It's Your Club

32 Barkston Gardens....Earl's Court....LONDON SW5 0EN....020-7373 1665

ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BRIDGE CLUBS

The Young Chelsea Bridge Club started in 1968, moving to its current Barkston Gardens premises in 1976. During this time Warwick Pitch made it one of the best-known bridge clubs in the world, with a membership that was among the strongest anywhere. In 2006 the club was generously donated by Warwick to the members, since when it has been run by a management committee with a full-time manager - although Warwick is still keenly involved and can be seen at the club most days.

The members are now responsible for the Club's future. The committee and manager can (and do) achieve great things, but we need every member to think about the simple actions they can take individually to sustain the Club as a flourishing members' club.

I t ' sYo u rC l u b

In the year since the club formally became a members' club many members with some time on their hands have taken the opportunity to get involved.

Liz Wright volunteered to look after the window boxes at the front of the building and has since been involved in brightening up the yard outside the playing rooms.

Gad Chadha volunteered to be the host on Monday nights, and has put a huge effort into making Mondays at YC a better experience. Jon Lillycrop has picked up from where Gad left off as the Monday night standby player. For those who would like to help but who don't have such a large amount of time to spare, on Friday nights we have a host rota where you can offer to be the standby for a single night.

Brian McGuire organised this year's Marathon - a mammoth task that could only have been completed with the help of an army of volunteers who gave their time on the day to work behind the bar, directing in the playing rooms, and heating up soup to distribute to the players at 5am! Hopefully they found the whole experience fun, as well as providing a valuable service to the club.

Members should go out of their way to bring guests and introduce new club members. Look out for beginners to bridge and tell them about the excellent newcomers' courses that are run at the Club.

Many members have volunteered to run one of the new events that were developed for our 40th anniversary. Perhaps you'd like to help Ricci Hammond with the Christmas Party? Are your marketing skills up to helping us launch the YCBC membership card, with concessions at local retailers and eateries?

Maybe you are a web-site designer who can help Gordon with this YCBC site. Gordon is always on the lookout for good/interesting hands involving YC players or played at the Club. They could be written up by any interested members and put on the web-site for all to share (interesting declarer/defence hands are more useful than complex bidding). Or perhaps we could feature a regular bridge-related quiz/competition?

Mike Smyth and Roland Payne donated books and bridge magazines to form the beginnings of the YCBC library, and so many other members have followed suit that we have had to add more shelves! Now we need volunteers to to organise the shelves, sort the books and magazines, and keep the library in order. Are you a retired librarian (or other book-lover) with time on your hands, who would be willing to help with this?

If you've even more energy, then volunteer to join one of the committees! You're bound to have some good ideas of your own about making the Club even better - just get in touch with someone on one of the committees.

One final small way you may be able to help us - let us know your email address if you have one that's current and functioning. It saves us money to be able to use email rather than terrestrial post, while at the same time helping us to give you more information and keep in touch more frequently. Just send us an email to info@ycbc.co.uk with "Update" in the subject line.