Directing
There is no requirement for club Directors to have any level of accreditation to run ordinary club sessions for which green masterpoints are awarded. However, it is a requirement that the Director be qualified as a D (club) Director for any club session for which red masterpoints are awarded. It is a requirement that the Director at club congresses are qualified as a C Director.
No matter how small, clubs should aim to have at least one D level Director. Larger clubs should aim to have at least one C level Director.
Development of Directors begins in clubs. Ideally, clubs should have more people able to direct than they normally need and certainly should not be reliant on one Director. The senior Director in your club should be responsible for training other Directors to be able to direct ordinary club duplicate pairs. The new Director does not need to know all the Laws of bridge; they do need to have read the Laws and be able to find the relevant Law for any issue. For the bulk of calls the Director will receive John McIlrath’s The Director is Called is an invaluabale resource.
The senior Director also needs to train the Director on setting up a session using the club’s scoring software, and concluding the session.
In conducting this “on the job” training the Tell-Show-Do model is useful. As an example, here is how you teach a new Director to set up a session.
- First, tell the trainee Director what steps they are going to have to take. (This should be prepared in advance as something the trainee can keep)
- Show the trainee Director how to set-up the session that is about to take place by setting it up with the trainee watching. (Once set-up, close and delete the session you just set up)
- The trainee now has to do the task – that is, get them to set-up the session. If they make mistakes try to get them to work out the correct action by asking targeted questions, not just telling them.
We recommend that all club Directors, not just trainees, should make notes on the calls they respond to. A small notebook is good for this or use a bidding pad sheet. The note should have three sections:
- The situation at the table. Where relevant write down all the bidding or just the contract. Detail theinfraction and any information provided by players after the Director asks “How can I help?”. It should include details of whether extra information was obtained by taking one player away from the table.
- The Laws that apply to the situation.
- The details of what the Director told the table was their ruling and the reasons for the ruling.
For trainee Directors the senior Director should review these notes as soon as possible after the session. Ideally all Directors at the club will meet regularly and discuss the notes from all sessions.
Full information on Directing is available on the Directing tabs on this site. Of particular interest to clubs are: