In our first full year of operation, Bridge NSW set a strategy to support all players, clubs and the community in NSW to:
- Grow the number of players
- Develop bridge player skills
- Support the best representative players
- Build the community
In 2025, we delivered a number of initiatives and achieved several milestones across these four objectives. These are summarised below.
Grow the number of players
- New website: To help revitalise the community, modernise its image to new players, and deliver new support services and materials, we launched a new website and branding for desktop, mobile and tablet. The monthly audience of the new website has grown to over 10,000 visits a month – double what it was previously.
- Club recruitment support: To help clubs recruit more beginners for their courses, we initiated a beginner course marketing customisation service. We also held a webinar to highlight this service and other support on offer.
- Beginner course materials: To help new and existing teachers easily deliver beginner courses, we designed beginner and teacher materials. These are available for free on our website.
- Teacher WhatsApp forum: To connect and support bridge teachers, we started a teacher chat group that now has 42 members. You can join the WhatsApp group here.
Develop bridge player skills
- Online Supervised Play: To help retain players that have completed a beginner course at club level, we trialled an Online Supervised Play service for players state wide. The sessions targeted new players whose clubs do not offer regular supervised sessions. They help new players to gain experience and confidence at a slower pace of play. They were a hit with 8 to 9 tables each week – mostly players from small and medium size regional clubs that have no dedicated supervised sessions. We will offer this service regularly in 2026, starting 8 February.
- Newsletter articles: The new newsletter format includes hand analysis from recent events from Kate McCallum, seven-time world champion. Several other experienced players provide articles of interesting hands from NSW events.
- “Mini Monday” event: To help those new to congresses enjoy the event, a Mini Monday event was trialled at Spring Nationals educating new players about the differences to club play. We expect this event to continue, supporting growth in the event community.
- Created a Tips for Congress brochure for players new to congresses. Players can view and download the brochure on our website. Clubs can use it to support their newer members to play in club congresses.
Support the best representative players
- Promoted and delivered Interstate Team Selection qualifying events and State Championships. These were mostly held online to offer inclusivity for players across NSW.
- Online Pairs League (OPL): To help grow the event playing community at all player levels, we promoted and grew Monday night OPL and boosted participation levels. To offer fun and healthy competition, Bridge NSW has teamed up with Bridge Victoria to co-host the event. To help OPL participants enhance their match play, we arranged for popular bridge teacher Derrick Browne to provide weekly analysis of play. Everyone plays the same boards, making his analyses highly relevant.
- Online Teams League (OTL): To give competitive players a chance to play frequently in a teams format against a strong field, we launched and ran the Online Teams League.
- Restructured State Pairs and Teams Championships for 2026, to encourage greater regional involvement and improve participation at all player levels.
- Made several enhancements to the Sydney Spring Nationals program, including a new Open Teams format, which was well received.
Build the community
- Elected a new Council made up of club representatives from across the State to ensure clubs have a clear and prominent voice in organisational decisions.
- Director training: Our Directing Committee held courses and workshops at eight locations across the state to help new directors gain accreditation and to enhance the standard of the state directing pool. The Directing Committee also hosted a webinar on Compscore3.
- Presidents’ Days: Bridge NSW held nine Presidents’ Days across the state attended by 95 representatives of 54 clubs. Each of these days saw club leaders from a region come together to learn more about how Bridge NSW can support them, and to explore opportunities to support each other.
- Delivered a new events calendar on the website that provides the best bridge calendar experience in the country. It helps players find suitable events and supports NSW clubs to achieve higher attendance levels at their events.
- Overhauled newsletter: To ensure clubs and players feel a part of the community and across the latest happenings, we re-launched the now monthly newsletter, Bridging NSW. Close to 6,000 players receive the newsletter each month. You can sign up for the newsletter here.
- Grew our Facebook community by over 33% to 445 followers. If you are not following us already, head to the page and click on ‘Like’ or ‘Follow’.
- To highlight to clubs the benefits of managing member funds more easily with MyABF, we hosted a webinar on MyABF.
Our Board and Committees worked hard behind the scenes to deliver these initiatives with limited resources. None of these achievements would have been possible without our many incredible volunteers – we and the wider community owe them a great deal of gratitude.
We look forward to seeing the impact of these new services and supporting an even stronger bridge community in NSW in 2026.
