Volunteers Gary Gitner and Karen Rash-Gitner at the Portland Bridge Club

By Carol Holman

Portland OR, the home of Unit 487, has been hosting Sunday Social Bridge at the Portland Bridge Club, which is co-owned by Jamie Sparks and “the Davids” – David Castles and David Brower – for almost one year. The PBC and the board, President Paula Koeller, Karen Douek, Carol Holman, Tara McMahon, Linda Redman, Linda Rountree and Paul Walker, have reported great success with the program.

Anyone is welcome to come play bridge for free on Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. Unit board members and volunteers run the game and provide answers to questions and lessons. It’s a comfortable atmosphere for beginning players. Many of the players are graduates of the bridge classes held at Portland Community College taught by Castles and Brower. On a quarterly basis, the club provides “A Taste of Duplicate,” giving the social players the opportunity to try out duplicate bridge. In addition, an Introduction to Tournament Play class was provided prior to the recent June sectional. The goal, of course, was to encourage these players to switch to duplicate bridge. We were thrilled to have enough 199er players to run a separate game for them in the sectional: four tables on Friday and seven tables on Saturday.

Two people have been extremely helpful … Gary Gitner and Karen Rash-Gitner. They come every Sunday, open the club, start the coffee, put out some snacks, and help pair up any single players that show up. Our hat is off to them!