Tournament Directors are needed at every level of the organised bridge game. Highly expert directors are needed to run international and national events, but at the other end of the spectrum even the smallest club game needs a director to be in control and sort out any problems that may arise.

The English Bridge Union has a panel of directors for national events.
This is headed by Chief TD, Max Bavin, and consists of a hierarchy of lesser directors - the familiar maroon-jacketed figures you see when attending any national event - from National Director down to Trainee.

Selection to the panel is by invitation only, but is made from the body of trained and qualified directors at County level, who in turn are drawn from the large number of qualified Club Directors. Training and an assessment process for both club and county directors is provided through the EBU Education Department.

Club Director Courses

Four one-day courses are available for those who wish to become qualified Club Directors. These are scheduled to take place across the country in different locations each year, as far as possible in line with demand. This year the courses have been thoroughly reviewed and the content has been changed to reflect current needs. They have been re-launched with new titles as follows:

Club Directing - Essentials (formerly P). This covers the role of the Club Director, the basics of movements and scoring and an introduction to the Law Book. There is now a greater emphasis on people-handling issues and the skills needed to ensure a harmonious and happy atmosphere is maintained within the Club duplicate. Correspondingly, there is less emphasis on scoring, as even the smallest club usually now uses computer scoring. Players new to directing are now strongly recommended to attend this course as the first in the series.

Club Directing - Book Rulings (formerly A). This workshop explains how to deal with all the everyday problems which arise at the table - revokes, leads out of turn, insufficient bids and so on, using lots of simulations and role-playing to give valuable practice in handling rulings.

Club Directing - Judgment Rulings (formerly B). This course deals with the trickier rulings, where you can't usually make an automatic decision but need to exercise judgement. Though arising less frequently in most clubs, judgement rulings can cause much bigger problems than book rulings and the club director must know how to handle them correctly.

Club Directing - Assessment (formally C). Though also giving lots of useful practice in rulings, this day is primarily to assess performance, successful participants being awarded a Club Director's Certificate of Competence. A new 'Pass with Distinction' is being introduced this year for those who do particularly well on the Assessment course, to recognise high levels of performance. To achieve a Distinction, participants will need to show a good attitude towards players and the right way of approaching the table, as well as a good knowledge of the Law book.

Advanced Club Directing - (formally D). For qualified Club Directors, who wish to update their knowledge and maintain or raise their performance as TDs. This course is particularly recommended to those who wish to progress to County level directing, prior to taking the County Course. It will also be used to enable existing Club Directors to upgrade to obtain a "Distinction".

Click on each course name for further details. Go to Course Schedules to see when courses are running and to book places.

If no courses are available to suit you, or you believe there is demand in your area which has not been met, we would be happy to set up additional courses as needed. Please call John Pain,Tel: 01296 317217· fax: 01296 317220; or email: john@ebu.co.uk to pursue this