Because of the difficulty of clubs collecting money when the events are played online, we suggest that for them it may be simpler for players to send in their donations directly using one of the methods below (PayPal, Bank Transfer or cheque). But we are also more than happy for clubs who have a way of taking the donations to send them as a "lump sum" by one of the methods below. Some events set an amount payable, for others we just ask you to donate as much as possible. although we do suggest that £3 per player minimum would be good; any extra would be even better of course !
As we run a number of Charity events for different causes, it is really important, please, that you reference the event then the name of the club you played at when you make the payment by whatever means you prefer
- CiN for Children in Need,
- WCP for the Winter Charity pairs for UNICEF
- CHCH for the Charity Challenge
- TSEQ for the Turkish/Syria Appeal
- U3A for the U3A Spring Charity Bridge Festival
- SCP for the ECatsBridge Summer Charity Pairs
So these are the various payment methods:
By Bank Transfer PLEASE NOTE WE HAVE CHANGED OUR BANK AND THE OLD CHARITY ECATSBRIDGE ACCOUNT IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING CLOSED. Monies sent there will be returned to you once it is all completed.
We moved to a bank here in Orkney with a new account as it will make life a great deal easier for us with banking, rather than having to deal with an account where we used to live in Suffolk (rather a long trek to the bank !)
if you are given a choice between it being a payment to a personal or a business account, you need to select personal account
Then these are the details:
M Newton & A Gudge
Sort code - 82-66-02
Account Number 60036019
Please put the event name (e.g. -U3A for the U3A Anniversary Pairs, Chch for the Charity Challenge, CiN for Children in Need) and your club name as the reference so we can allocate the donations to the right club
or ...
PayPal
PayPal will accept credit or debit card payments or of course you can just log in if you already have an account with them- please remember to enter your club name if applicable and the event that the payment is for:
Please Note we can only accept payments in British Pounds, so if you are paying for an event where the charges are in another currency, please email us to know how much it needs to be.
Please also note the following :
Because of the changes in format for our Charity events, it is necessary also to make changes to the way we charge for Simultaneous Pairs. I am sure you understand that we have a lot of expenses – the servers, the bandwidth, electricity and our time, payment for commentaries, updating software and so on – are all factors we have to consider if we are going to run the events and raise as much as we can for the various charities.
In general, therefore, we will make a charge through the Charity account of 60p per player + the dreaded VAT as the entry fee to the event, with all other funds being a donation to the charity. For simplicity we will deduct our fee from the total at the end before sending the balance to the charity. As stated earlier, we suggest a minimum donation of £3 per player, although maybe players would like to make that a little bit more to cover this entry fee.
I am sure you understand the need to do this – the only alternative would be to stop running the events altogether and close ECatsBridge – something we don’t want to do and hopefully you don’t want us to do!
I expect you will remember that in the days especially when we printed booklets, the entry fee to the event covered those and all other costs, with as much as possible (about 70%) being sent to the Charity concerned. In the case of Children in Need the club was invited to purchase the organiser pack separately. None of this happens now.