ANNUAL REPORT 2024 – 2025
Activities
Saturday club: This continues to be a very good way of bringing the children from different schools together to play and compete face to face. Parents of these children make donations each term, and these make a significant contribution to the cost of paying helpers/supervisors for the sessions.
Schools: We wound down the face to face teaching in schools for reasons outlined in last year’s annual report, finishing in Summer 2024 and moving to teaching online after school instead (with the exception of Acland Burghley School, where we continued to teach after school face to face). Moving to online has given us the flexibility to keep together groups of learners as they have left primary school and moved to different secondary schools, as many did in September 2024.
Once again, we took a large group of our young players to participate in the Youth Bridge Challenge at Loughborough, with travel being funded directly by EBED (English Bridge Education and Development). I continued to run free online coaching sessions for the U16 squad members twice per week and these children are making excellent progress, with some competing in international youth tournaments.
Income sources
Our income from donations has fallen again this year, as predicted, but a one-off donation from the Makers of Playing Cards Guild was very helpful. Patreon subscriptions bring in an ever-dwindling amount and, as mentioned above, parents of the Saturday group also make contributions.
Challenges for the future
As outlined last year, we are focusing on the challenge of attracting more young people into the game of bridge and making it accessible to all. Central to this is the development of an excellent website, providing learning resources that will support teachers and youth leaders who would like to teach a group of young people, as well as providing everything that an interested youngster needs to teach themselves to play.
During this year, we have made some initial upgrades to the existing site and created new resources with teaching videos and practice hands. EBED have funded the minor website development, reimbursing the fees paid to a developer on Freelancer. In 20252026, we will be designing and creating a completely new website with many extra features, again supported by EBED.
NEW TRICKS ACCOUNTS 2024-2025
| Cash in bank | 3 | April | 2024 | 7,945.20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash in bank | 2 | April | 2025 | 6,241.42 |
INCOME
| INCOME | |
|---|---|
| Saturday kids contributions | 1,990.00 |
| Teaching | 195.00 |
| Small donations | 71.30 |
| Large donation (Makers of Cards) | 2,400.00 |
| Large donation (CSL) | 900.00 |
| Patreon | 567.05 |
| EBED Reimbursement Freelancer | 790.87 |
| EBED Reimbursement Travel | 499.05 |
| TOTAL INCOME | 7,413.27 |
EXPENDITURE
Teaching
| Teaching | ||
|---|---|---|
| Suzanne Anisfeld | 1,330.00 | Immanuel School |
| Gabi Johnson | 800.00 | Acland Burghley School & Saturdays |
| Bridget Rampton | 1,000.00 | Coldfall School |
| Ingar Hansen | 800.00 | North Bridge House School |
| Saturday supervisors | 2,960.00 | |
| Shark Bridge | 39.65 |
Miscellaneous
| Miscellaneous | |
|---|---|
| Hiscox insurance | 121.08 |
| Sage Accounting | 77.20 |
| Opinion Stage (Quiz hosting) |
237.59 | |
|---|---|---|
| DBS check |
45.00 | |
| Website development (Freelancer) | 790.87 | Reimbursed by EBED |
| Travel (Kids to camp) |
499.05 | Reimbursed by EBED |
| Domain hosting (FastComet) |
108.20 | |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURE |
8,808.64 |