Jacks Morcombe, supported by other county officials from Suffolk, Malcolm Pryor, Richard Evans & Peter Bushby, ran a Zoom webinar on Saturday 16th May, sharing their county's experiences of introducing Virtual Clubs and helping clubs train to run them. The intended audience was county officials and volunteers, although a number of representatives from clubs also attended. After a few problems getting started, the meeting ran smoothly and covered a lot of ground . It has been recorded and is now available here for anyone who missed it.
Text chat and questions appear below.
00:22:53 Jeffrey Smith: Do they do Teams of 8?
00:25:39 Jeffrey Smith: Have you done Charity bridge and how was that organised?
00:26:50 Shirley's iPad: can I ask about finance please? how much do County games cost and how do you monitor payments?
00:29:16 Jeffrey Smith: How did you manage to get host rights? BBO have refused us several times?
00:30:35 Lesley Millet: How do we regain our members who are playing for free at the moment?
00:30:49 Brian Smith: How do you play your team matches. we had horrendous experiences
00:31:20 Sati: Once you have done the training, do you need to register as a TD with BBO? What does that involve?
00:31:54 Jeffrey Smith: How do you get the BBO results onto your bridgewebs site?
00:32:22 Pippa Green: Would Peter be ok with us using his YouTube links on our county and club website too?
00:32:55 Peter Bushby: Yes Peter would :)
00:33:06 Richard Evans: Re results on to bridgewebs, one of our members has produced a spreadsheet which enables us to convert BBO data for Bridgewebs and EBU uploads
00:33:14 Daniel Miller: Brian. it is critical you reserve seats for your players. or you will be inundated with demand.. also I strongly advise you friend all eight players so you know they are ready to accept. if one player is asleep don't close. just try again
00:34:12 Pippa Green: How successful was your AGM online? Was it well attended?
00:34:44 Shirley's iPad: Gordon - is it true that in a BBO Swiss there is no algorithm to prevent Pairs playing each other twice?
00:34:51 Richard Evans: Virtual AGM takes place next month
00:34:52 Brian Smith: Does BBO Swiss Pairs work? we tried it and there wer multiple pairs
00:35:05 Daniel Miller: not aware of being able to switch tables in match. suspect you have to set up two halves and add scores
00:35:06 Brian Smith: How can you rum Swiss Teams?
00:35:31 Jeffrey Smith: Does Chris Chambers extractor rescore the event properly ie not BBO average percent method?
00:35:31 John Barker: There is a system already in Bridgewebs which will automatically upload results with correct names and upload available to ebu with 2 clicks from bbo
00:35:38 Gordon Rainsford: Yes Shirley, it is not really Swiss at all but Danish, which is why we no longer use it.
00:35:59 Gordon Rainsford: They have just introduced Howells which solve some of those problems
00:36:00 Alan Mould: My experience is that there is no Swiss available in BBO which prevents pairs playing each other multiple times. It is a full "Danish Swiss" as it is called.
00:36:09 Daniel Miller: no no Swiss teams BBO is pairs oriented afaik
00:36:30 Jeffrey Smith: Can you handle sitouts? and Are all your competitions clocked?
00:37:03 Gordon Rainsford: Swiss pairs is what is being talked about
00:37:19 Malcolm: About playing teams, after a month of playing teams all our teams are now comfortable with setting up matches. I sent out detailed instructions at the beginning of our league, for some teams I set up their first match. I also coached some people through their first set up on the phone. There are one two potential pitfalls.
00:37:50 Richard Evans: Yes, competitions clocked. Currently 16 mins for 2 boards. If we have a half table, we get subs, which - surprisingly perhaps - has worked well. We explain t them we are running a club evening and they have fitted in
00:41:35 Graham Hardman: How do people buy BBO$ if not at the store please?
00:41:38 The Manx Sargents: Free tournaments are disappearing... The trend is to paid events...
00:41:44 South-West Region: How do the movements (Mitchell/Howell) work so those in a virtual club play with each other?
00:42:00 Nicky Ferguson: Current problems with BBO overload mean evening bridge can be problematic. Are other clubs shifting their sessions to earlier in the day and still getting large numbers of participants?
00:42:19 The Manx Sargents: COMMENT: Reliability of the online platform is a big issue
00:42:25 Meena Samani: BBO$ can be purchased on BBO website - on the right when you log on... blue box
00:43:40 The Manx Sargents: Small virtual clubs are not the way forward in my view... Can we organise clubs on a regional basis?
00:44:24 Tony French: One has to remember, and please take this as intended, clubs will be competing with the EBU itself for online games.
00:44:39 Robert Killip: I understand that a virtual club can be run without members paying BBO$. The EBU pays for the session and the club pays the EBU together with UMS. The club is then responsible for collecting "table money" from members. Is that correct?
00:45:37 Sati: Yes, the BBO can invoice the club, money collected by EBU
00:45:59 Richard Evans: Nicky, yes we have moved one session a week to afternoons…most clubs are still having evening sessions
00:46:35 The Manx Sargents: My question too
00:46:36 Daniel Miller: subs are happy to play. it's free for them
00:48:54 Daniel Miller: BBO collect the money and pass 70 percent back to EBu. EBU remunerate clubs which will receive UMS demand as per usual (normal time frame)
00:55:10 Robert Killip: It would be helpful to understand how a virtual club session actually works: How do pairs join a session; is it a standard duplicate; how do you handle an odd no. of pairs; how many boards are played; what happens if there are internet problems for someone during a session
00:55:22 Graham Hardman: IS there an upload to Pianola please
00:57:21 Peter Bushby: Run Swiss Teams By Running it on EBUScoreWsissTeams Round-in-Arrears. Send Captains the draw and they set up their own matches. Then you quickly score the round using Match Scored IMPS scores. And send out the assignments a round in arrears to th ecaptains. Later you can add the board by board scores for NGS.
00:57:49 Malcolm Boyack: Exeter bridge club are running a Swiss Pairs Event (subject to numbers) but each session of 8 boards is run over 6 weeks
00:59:07 Peter Bushby: CHris Chanbers output goes into Pianola
00:59:19 Tony French: Can a virtual club host be authorized for more than one club?
00:59:57 Richard Evans: Yes, my fellow host is helping out at our neighbouring club
01:00:23 Peter Bushby: Colchester and Stratford St Mary run joint sessions under one Virtual CLub ID. We share the rebate 50-50.
01:00:40 Daniel Miller: to cope with small table numbers I recommend you have .. say 6*3 board rounds. so when you have 7 tables you avoid 9*2 and the same opponent twice
01:01:20 Daniel Miller: or join forces and increase numbers
01:03:31 Daniel Miller: Gordon. please add a note on front page regarding the two rooms in BBO and how this impacts on managing events when you cannot see activity in other room (call for tournament etc)
01:07:55 Michael Green: all the clubs in Berkshire are restricting to memebers
01:08:34 Peter Bushby: The great thing is Clubs can choose
01:08:59 Richard Evans: In Suffolk we are inviting visitors from other local ie Suffolk, clubs…and that is working well
01:09:07 The Manx Sargents: The move to online bridge will ultimately change our existing club structures... We need to expect and anticipate this.
01:09:19 Richard Evans: I totally agree
01:09:57 Pippa Green: We have found that the EBU events are running at BBO $1.50 per player whereas the clubs are suggesting BBO $3 per player and the times are very similar at 7pm and 7.30pm. Why is there a difference?
01:11:03 Peter Bushby: EBU events are 12 boards not 20. Club events connect you to those you're used to playing with. We augment the experience with a Zoom 'after party'
01:11:13 The Manx Sargents: During this change, we need to make sure we support our EBU central function, particularly in terms of financing...
01:11:57 RonFM: It will lead to new forms of bridge between clubs and groups within clubs however.
01:12:25 Tony French: To be clear, virtual clubs support the EBU. Lest we forget, clubs pay to be affiliated and collect P2P.
01:12:28 Alan Mould: You have to make sure you are NOT on the casual part of the site but on the competitive part of the site
01:13:39 Daniel Miller: Alan Mould. I asked EBU to specify this.
01:18:15 David Guild: This phase of our online development is concerned with technical/procedural/financial issues on a static ebu club population. As we are expecting to the end of the year how do we manage new members to club/eb. Also a major incentive to embrace non-affiliate clubs into the EBU.
01:18:19 richard: could Richard make available the How to page from Suffolk with video links please?
01:18:41 Tony French: Robert is welcome to join one of our virtual sessions...…. I'm sure other clubs would offer this.
01:19:44 Richard Evans: Go to Little Clacton bridge club website…and you will find all the links there. Failing that contact me via Suffolk website
01:20:43 freda: Thank you so much for this enlightening session paving the way forward. It has been most interesting
01:21:25 Lesley Millet: Can we please have notes from this meeting quite quickly - Yorkshire's Bridge Development and the Northern Counties meet in the next week?
01:22:31 Tony French: Many thanks for the time that hosts have given up, much appreciated.
01:22:34 Sati: Thank you organisers for a very useful webinar.
01:22:36 South-West Region: Congratulations to Suffolk for organising this!
01:22:45 Meena Samani: Thank you for a very useful session
01:23:08 Daniel Miller: thx Suffolk
01:23:10 Pippa Green: Thank you Suffolk and EBU for organising this session.
01:23:14 RonFM: Brilliant and rich presentation and discussion
01:23:19 Peter Grice: Thanks Jacks and everyone for arranging this.
01:23:45 Simon: A very useful session. Thank you, Suffolk. You've obviously worked hard.
01:24:18 Shirley's iPad: thanks to Suffolk very impressive
01:26:52 Keith Stait: thank you Suffolk / hosts, a valuable contribution to those lagging behind you in online bridge
01:26:59 David Guild: Brilliant Thank you
May 8, 2020