About us
In aid of Marie Curie and end of life care
The following gives more information about us and enables you to register a new group or renew your existing group for another year.
How the Tournament Works
First and foremost the tournament is sociable and fun and is for any standard of player. Find a partner, then make up a group. Groups are usually made up of 6 pairs but this varies.
Fewer than 4 pairs is too small and you can have as many as 8 or 10 pairs in a group. You only play one pair at a time and never in public.
The idea is that you have lunch/supper/tea or whatever, play 3 rubbers or 20 hands of Chicago and keep a record of your score. When you have played all the other pairs in your group, send your scores to your Area Organiser. Most games take place in one another’s homes.
All the groups are listed in our directory which comes out in September each year. It lists group names and telephone numbers and includes score sheets and rules. You play each pair in your group over the winter months and results have to be in by the end of March of the following year. You may play Chicago or Rubber bridge. We have prizes for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd highest score in both Chicago and Rubber sections.
The cost of entering is £25 per head. The entry fee is £4 and suggested donation £21 totalling £25 but all donations are welcome.
All money raised goes to Marie Curie and end of life care.
We are fortunate enough to be supported by St. James’s Place who pay all our printing and postage costs.
Diana Thompson is responsible for the overall running of the tournament assisted by Charlotte Gallian who handles all the entries and payments. If anyone is interested in forming a new group, please contact Gail Jones or the relevant Area Organiser in your county. The tournament is national and each county is supported by an Area Organiser of whom there are 20. The contact details for each Area Organiser are included in the directory as well as this website.
Do enter with your friends and invite friends from other parts of the country to join. Groups are formed in all parts of the UK so any suggestions of people who might like to form groups anywhere would be hugely welcome.
How to enter
Click the relevant button below for full details of how to enter and entry forms which can be completed either on or offline. All entries have to be in by 31st May.
Existing Group Renewal
New Group Application
HISTORY OF THE TOURNAMENT
BY Philippa Cannon
The bridge tournament started in 1994, after both of my parents had died of cancer and had been nursed through their dying days by wonderful Marie Curie nurses who looked after both them and me so very well. I could never praise them highly enough and feel forever in their debt.
I had just retired from the Plantery and heard about a similar bridge tournament in the West country and thought I might try to copy it to raise money for Marie Curie. It started in a very small way with about 7 groups, but everyone enjoyed it so much they spread the word and asked me to do it for another year! To start with I had a group of wonderful friends who helped me put the groups together, as in those days everyone entered as a pair and we put them into groups.
As it grew this became a mighty undertaking! We increased the number of helpers – the “committee” – and all met to decide who should play in which group which was quite an undertaking but most people loved being put into groups with new people.
We had a lunch and “prize giving” at end of the bridge year (early summer) in a village hall and everyone enjoyed it hugely but as the whole thing grew and spread we had to give it up. We used to have a prize for the winners of each group, but this became a massive task as the number of groups just grew too large.
I contacted friends around the country to suggest they might like to get a group going, and so it spread, and many of the luckless friends were turned into “Area Organisers”. By now most of us had computers or ipads, so it was much easier to keep in touch and contact people. In the early days everything had to be typed out with many carbon copies!
The first year we made £1,200, by 2012 we topped half a million, and in 2019 we topped the million!
It has been quite a journey but tremendous fun.
Marie Curie
All our fund raising is dedicated to Marie Curie and end of life hospice care.
Marie Curie is the leading end of life charity. They provide frontline nursing and hospice care, a free support line and a wealth of information. They also support all aspects of dying, death and bereavement. Over the period of a year, Marie Curie will help over 50,000 people with their services. They are currently only reaching 10% of people at the end of life in the UK and the need for their work has never been greater and therefore, naturally, the need for funding.
The bridge tournament primarily supports the Marie Curie funding and will continue to do so. However, in areas where there is no Marie Curie service, the tournament will support the local hospices.
St James’s Place Wealth Management
We are a FTSE-100 wealth management business that puts long-term relationships and advice that clients trust at the heart of everything we do. Since we started trading in 1992, we have grown rapidly to be the largest company in our sector in the UK, with £129.3bn of client funds under management.
Because every client has different needs and aspirations, we offer personalised advice that covers financial, investment and tax planning, designed specifically for their lifestyle goals and stage of life. In a world of call centres and robo-advice, we believe in the face-to-face approach and offer advice and services for individuals and business owners.
