With the Covid lockdown showing no signs of easing, members are restricted to their homes to an alarming and indeed, exhausting extent. You can only do so much walking and gardening. Leisure pursuits such as reading and watching the tele only pass so much of the day.

Bearing all of the above in mind we wracked our brains to come up with an activity that is good for our brains. Finally we hit upon it! BRIDGE! So many members play bridge and now that physical bridge is no longer available, and won’t be this side of Christmas 2001, we decided to form a Virtual Bridge Club, creatively called RTAI Bridge Club!

The club meets virtually on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Registration to play starts at 8am and the tournament commences at 10am. RTAI members are invited to join the club. Each member can also bring in a non RTAI person to partner them if they so wish.

The standard is a mix ranging from beginners to A players. We have established a website, www.bridgewebs.com/rtai to which the results are posted each week. Currently I am the general dog’s body who acts as TD, puts up the results and administers the website.

We do need an influx of new members so if you are interested in joining the club please contact this site or send a message to any member of committee. You are guaranteed a pleasant morning of bridge on the BBO platform every Tuesday and Thursday morning without fail. And you also get to meet fellow members and you can exchange a bit of chat and banter at the table in a relaxed manner! I look forward to welcoming many new members to the club. All that you need to send me is your name, bbo username, grade, mobile, email address and CBAI number. It’s free to join!

While registration was brisk and we ended up with 80 members registered, actual bridge was sluggish and we rarely managed to get more than three tables per session. Regretfully, after going to the expense of setting up a website and organising registration it was decided to cancel online bridge. This type of response didn’t merit a member of committee devoting two mornings a week to sitting over a computer setting up a tournament and then being forced to cancel same due to a lack of participation. Indeed, when individual members request new activities, it doesn’t encourage already hard pressed committee members to participate and to give freely of their time and expertise.

Activities are a two-way street! Committee doesn’t mind establishing new participative activities, but the support has to be there and to be consistent. Ní neart go cur le chéile!