ECatsBridge is the organiser of the annual Charity Challenge Cup.

The 2016 event will be on Thursday 10 March - a week earlier than normal as the EBU's stratified pairs is being held the following week and we can't clash with that. The Charity we are raising funds for this year is Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research. We feel that this is a very worthwhile charity and hope that it will serve not only to raise funds for research into spinal injuries but also becuase it demonstrates that bridge is a sport that can be enjoyed by sufferers of spinal injury and paralysis, enabling them to enjoy the challenge of the game as well as the social aspects that we all like so much. Please help to support this excellent charity and its work.

You may be aware that the EBU has made it a condition of the licence giving us the right to award overall Master Points for this event that any English clubs must be affiliated and also have to pay the normal P2P charge – this doesn’t affect clubs in other countries of course.

However, as we know that many English clubs who participate in this event are NOT affiliated, we are going to run two separate sessions, one for the affiliated clubs which will receive the overall master points and those from other countries (Scotland and Wales etc) and one for the non-affiliated English clubs so that they are not left “out in the cold”. We won’t be able to award master points of course, and for that reason, and because of the extra P2P charge made by the EBU we are going to drop the entry fee slightly for all clubs. So instead of £3.50 per player, we are only going to request £3.20 per player. We know this may reduce the amount we can pass on to the Charity, but we also realise that many clubs will withdraw if it is too expensive. Maybe you could try and raise some extra money with a raffle or something to try and reduce the shortfall ?

When we send out the material in February we will give you TWO session numbers – one for affiliated clubs (and the Scottish and Welsh ones) and one for non-affiliated clubs and ask you to use whichever is appropriate. Both these sessions will display on the website of course, and Mark has added to the program so that there will be an overall ranking list displayed as well – also scored across the whole field – so that everyone can see where they would have come overall.

Please, please join us if you can – the Charity is such an important one, and we would love to give them a nice big cheque at the end ! And, as I say, if you can, please try and collect money over and above the entry fee – donations really help.

We would like to thank Mr Bridge for organising the event in recent years and also to express our great appreciation for his continued generous sponsorship this year by printing the booklets, and also to Bernard Magee for writing the commentary.

What is involved and how to enter