Leicestershire Contract Bridge Association

The EBU's Proposals for Future Strategy

5 June 2008

The outcome of the EBU Shareholders Meeting of June 4th 2008 fairly closely mirrored the conclusions of the LCBA Committee when it decided to support the P2P proposal but with reservations. One might summarise this line as: a radical change in the EBU's funding mechanism is necessary but risky; we do support the aim of the new funding scheme to achieve a step-change increase in the number of bridge players who join the EBU; the move to P2P will cause upheaval. It is essential that the EBU and the counties jointly find ways to support our clubs and persuade as many as possible that they do not need to disaffiliate from the EBU.

The June 4th vote to proceed with P2P was carried by 52 in favour, 31 against (there were 2 abstentions). In addition to voting, each county had the opportunity to speak about their feelings. There was a clear consensus that P2P could only be a success if a number of challenges were tackled by the EBU board. These included the following:

smaller clubs might not sustain the workload required to participate in the P2P system

it was not economic for some clubs to participate in P2P

clubs were not convinced about the benefits they derived from affiliating to the EBU

if membership declined significantly then the P2P charge would increase

the EBU might fail to deliver the software systems required for P2P

The Chairman of the EBU, Peter Stocken, has promised two developments which should address these concerns. One: to establish a permanent Club Committee of the EBU Board. This will be responsible for all matters concerning clubs that play Duplicate Bridge. Two: to establish a P2P Project Board. This will be responsible for the strategic management of the whole project. To ensure club input, there will be two members on it specifically representing clubs. Peter also gave some important assurances:

that the budget is prudent and includes the employment of any support staff that will be required to help clubs implement P2P. It will be monitored at every turn.

that the IT process will be rigorously examined every step of the way and volunteer clubs will be asked to test the process before going live in April 2010.

that the people whom it is intended to make up the Project Board and the “Pay to Play” implementation team do have the appropriate IT and business skills to make this work and the ability to call on others for specialist input as and when required.

The LCBA policy now is twofold: we will do whatever we can to suport our clubs and we must hold the EBU board to their promises. Assuming that P2P proceeds, our financial plans are in place: we would no longer charge our members an annual subscription, instead the primary funding of the LCBA would be by an addition to the P2P fee. The combined P2P fee in Leicestershire in April 2010 would be either 37p or 38p. Much more detail about the likely membership scenarios that will affect the LCBA, the Clubs and individuals are set out in the working party report, a Word document which you can download by clicking this link. We hope that this information will answer many people’s detailed questions about “how bridge will work in 2010”.

The LCBA Committee has asked its P2P working party to remain in existence, albeit in mothballs just now. It can be activated at any time if P2P developments require the LCBA to take action.

In October 2009 a three-quarters majority of shareholder votes will be required to approve the changes to the EBU bye laws and articles of association necessary for the scheme to come into operation on April 1st 2010. Peter Stocken has written "we will conscientiously review the EBU’s operations, systems, processes and structures to ensure that it is ready to meet, in particular, the challenges of universal membership and, in general, to achieve the very best for Duplicate Bridge in England." That must be done or else the shareholders will not approve the scheme.

John Wilcox