The Jefferson Bridge Association

The Association sponsors five sanctioned games each week, thus fostering the social, recreational and mentally challenging aspects of duplicate Bridge for local enthusiasts. In order for a game to be sanctioned by the american contract Bridge league, a game should have a minimum of three tables of four contestants. Our success is measured by the number of tables in play per game, and total number of tables throughout the year. Our Association has grown from playing a total of 740 tables in year 2006 to 2,339 tables in year 2019 for approximately 9,358 players. A primary goal of the Association is to increase attendance and enjoyment of the game by providing the most modern equipment and supplies, a safe and comfortable environment for our players, and eventually owning a dedicated facility where daily games and classes can be offered for our members. Covid-19 changed our normal way of playing games in person. We closed our physical site in march 2020 for the remainder of the year and shifted over to having games online with thirteen clubs sharing the income and expenses. For this reason, it is not possible to know the number of tables that we played in 2020. Our in-person games resumed november 3, 2021 and were held only on wednesdays and fridays, with attendance down sixty percent from pre-covid. It is not possible to know the total number of in- person and online tables for 2021.

The Association organizes games to benefit local charities by giving monetary donations and supplies, but most importantly, soliciting contributions from our members. In the past, we were instrumental in having our members to donate thousands of dollars, while attending our charity in-person games, which benefited many of the charity organizations mentioned on our website. Covid-19 resulted in our club participanting in only one charity game in 2021,that being the alzheimer's annual longest day game, that was played online, and jba's members contributed a total of 9,208 directly to our local alzheimer's Association.

The Association promotes educating the public, regardless of age, race, religion, or physical abilities, to play the game of duplicate Bridge by financially supporting and teaching classes at convenient times in our local area. Over the past fourteen years, our Association has had a series of eighteen classes for just over five hundred forty-nine newcomers to the game. In 2019, we had another class (in conjunction with olli) for thirty-eight newcomers through our national american contract Bridge league. Our Association coordinates with the acbl in sponsoring tournaments, so that local Bridge players can meet and compete with other Bridge players on a regional and national level. In 2017 we began offering two new games for soliciting new players. A thursday game was started to mentor and teach only beginners how to play Bridge by giving a lesson at the beginning of each game by one of our expert players. This game has grown to have an average of seven tables each week. Also, we began offering a pro-am game on the second sunday of each month, for the benefit of beginning players wanting to partner with a mentor to improve their bidding and play. As previously mentioned, covid-19 caused us to adopt to a new way of having our games and a new way of doing business by combining the members of various clubs in the state and then prorating the income and expenses. We were able to have the pro-am game online in 2021. Since we no longer have the thursday in-person game for beginners, we began having a lecture by two of our expert players prior to our first friday game each month.