The Sale Bridge Club recently undertook an 'ice bucket' challenge to raise money for research into motor neuron disease.  They obtained fabulous coverage on WIN television - the Gippsland National News!

What a wonderful community of bridge players - I want to join that club!

A reminder!   If your Club is planning a special event for Melbourne Cup Day, let your local community newspaper know about it.  If they show little interest, send them an article with a photograph of people having fun after the event.  They are often looking for stories to fill their publication.

The ABF has organised for a one page advertisement to appear in the February 2015 issue of rotary DOWN UNDER, the official Rotary International publication which is circulated monthly to 32,000 members throughout Australia.  

Rotary International is an organisation of business and professional men and women united worldwide, who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

Their members are influential and discriminating consumers - leaders of business, industry, public service and the general community.

The timing of the advertisement will hopefully coincide with when most ABF affiliated clubs commence their beginner classes for 2015.  It would be ideal if planning for your Club beginner classes could take into account that this magazine will be distributed to its members during the first week of February so perhaps lessons could be scheduled for around the third week to allow for any interest which may (hopefully) be generated by this magazine.

A copy of the ABF advertisement can be viewed by clicking here.

Details have now been finalised for the education program at the Summer Festival of Bridge being held in Canberra in January.

Joan Butts, the ABF National Teaching Coordinator, will be facilitating two workshops on the topics mentioned below - check out the flyer.

1. Modern Bidding Methods (15 January)
2. Improve your Declarer Play (16 January)

In addition, there will be four Celebrity Speaker sessions - see below.  

1. David Beauchamp - Signals Vs Common Sense (18 January)
2. Ron Klinger - Extended use of Transfers in Modern Bidding (20 January)
3. Matt Mullamphy - Slam Bidding (21 January)
4. Sartaj Hans - How to Play against the Top Teams! (22 January).

The flyer for this can be accessed here.

Attendance at each of these sessions will attract a gold coin donation with proceeds going to Neuroscience Research Australia.

Check out the 2015 SFOB website for further details.

Applications for the 2015 grant program closed on Friday, 10 October.  

Four applications were received from NSW, one from Western Australia, one from Canberra and one from Victoria.

These applications will be considered by the ABF Management Committee at their meeting on 9 November.  All applicants will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible.

Marketing tips and promotional materials are available on the ABF website under Marketing.  They are designed to assist Club Administrators with their marketing endeavours.  

You will also find research information captured from members of ABF affiliated clubs over the last few years.  This 'intelligence' should be used to help inform any marketing strategies you may design for your Club.

Check out what's available here.

Any queries should be directed to the ABF National Marketing Officer at marketing@abf.com.au .