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Bio: Yarra Valley Bridge Club
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The Yarra Valley Bridge Club was established 40 years ago when the late Mrs Dorothy O'Neill gathered together 14 friends to learn bridge. Peter Hayward, a teacher with the VBA, agreed to give lessons in his own home in Croydon. After completing 14 comprehensive lessons, the club was formed in early 1968.
Pat Hayward was appointed our first paid director. We moved to our present East Ringwood address in 1981. Daytime play has been elsewhere for many years.
To mark the occasion of the club's 40th anniversary, in June we held a celebratory dinner at the Dorset Hotel, the venue for our annual congresses in the early years (see August '08 VBA Bulletin).
At the dinner it was announced that Aileen Bullen, Claire Lewis, Monica Murphy and Marjorie Stewart, four of the five living founding members would be made Life Members (Marjorie Saunders was made a Life Member many years ago). Aileen Bullen, Monica Murphy and Marjorie Stewart are still very active. Sadly, Claire Lewis, who had been too ill to play for some time, passed away in October.
The Club has one named championship event, the Harvey Gough Swiss Teams to commemorate a member from many years ago. We have decided to rename it the Quentin VanAbbe Swiss Teams in recognition of the contribution made to the Club by Quentin, who is pictured here.
Quentin is a Grand Master, has been President on more than one occasion, is a Life Member and is still on the Committee and making a valuable contribution.
The Club's congress is held every year in early February. We jealously guard our spot as the first club congress of the year and, despite its timeslot between the Summer Festival of Bridge in Canberra and the Gold Coast Congress, it is popular and well attended with numbers growing rapidly since we moved the venue to the Hungarian Community Centre. Last year we had 100 pairs and 43 teams; it was the largest club congress in Victoria. |  Details
| | This article was nicked from the VBA Bulletin February 2009 with the kind permission of Bill Jacobs, the Editor.
One of Melbourne's longest standing bridge clubs has been supporting bridge in the Eastern Suburbs for 40 years.
Membership of the Club is essentially static with daytime attendance increasing at the expense of night-time. An important part of this is that we are forced at the moment to use two venues with all the duplication and inconvenience this causes and we are limited to two night sessions. We are confident that we could expand the club if we could consolidate into one venue and increase the number of sessions.
We are, therefore, vigorously pursuing discussions with the Maroondah Council with a view to building an extension to the existing centre at East Ringwood. We dare to be optimistic.
The Yarra Valley Bridge Club recently celebrated its 40th Anniversary with a dinner attended by over 90 members and guests. The dinner was at the Dorset Gardens Hotel, the venue for the Club's first congress thirty years ago.
Guest of honour was 95 year old Marjorie Saunders, founding member, life member, past president and convenor of the first several congresses, who came from her home in Rosebud for the occasion.
Want more information about the Club and their Duplicate Sessions? Details
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