Dimmie Fleming Award citation - 2019 (nomination from Essex)
Essex Bridge wish to acknowledge the contribution that Bernie Hunt has made to Bridge in our county over the last 20 years. He has served on the ECBA committee for 10 years and continues to do so as the County League Secretary.
He has introduced many new players to the game, running courses, he provides the basic training for beginners and then introduces them gradually to Supervised Play, Beginner/Improver sessions, and finally Advanced sessions alongside experienced tournament players.
Over the last few years, he has invited the County to run all their events at his club which has greatly reduced the amount of committee work involved in delivering events and numbers of players are up on previous years. The EBU also use his premises as a venue to run National Pairs, Portland Pairs and Ranked Masters Pairs events within Essex, which benefits our players.
Finally, it can be said that Bernie is one of Bridge’s great enthusiasts. His enthusiasm is infectious and continues to encourage many people to take up Bridge and “get the bug” as we all did when first starting out.
The Essex Committee wish to see Bernie’s contribution to Bridge honoured in recognition of all the work he has done to get people into bridge (and keep them interested), but also to acknowledge the financial risks that he has taken on himself in order to promote and help develop Bridge within Essex.