Brief History

The LCBA first organised Simultaneous Pairs events as part of a fund-raisung effort to support the 1975 European Bridge Championships which were held in Brighton. Only four clubs held heats for the first of these in the autumn of 1973 but the 1974 one proved so popular that the event has been held annually ever since. George Taylor made a quite outstanding contribution to the development of bridge in Leicestershire over a period of more than 30 years, filling in turn virtually every committee post, as well as being an excellent county player and teacher.

For his services the LCBA honoured him as a Life Member in 1984, and in 1985 he was granted the EBU's Dimmie Fleming award. Following his death that year, in 1986 the Leicestershire Simultaneous pairs was renamed in his honour.

The outcome of the EBU Shareholders Meeting of June 4th 2008 fairly closely mirrored the conclusions of the LCBA Committee when it decided to support the P2P proposal but with reservations. One might summarise this line as: a radical change in the EBU's funding mechanism is necessary but risky; we do support the aim of the new funding scheme to achieve a step-change increase in the number of bridge players who join the EBU; the move to P2P will cause upheaval. It is essential that the EBU and the counties jointly find ways to support our clubs and persuade as many as possible that they do not need to disaffiliate from the EBU.

The June 4th vote to proceed with P2P was carried by 52 in favour, 31 against (there were 2 abstentions). In addition to voting, each county had the opportunity to speak about their feelings. There was a clear consensus that P2P could only be a success if a number of challenges were tackled by the EBU board. The Chairman of the EBU, Peter Stocken, has promised two developments which should address these concerns. One: to establish a permanent Club Committee of the EBU Board. This will be responsible for all matters concerning clubs that play Duplicate Bridge. Two: to establish a P2P Project Board. This will be responsible for the strategic management of the whole project. To ensure club input, there will be two members on it specifically representing clubs