South African Bridge Federation

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Functions of the SABF

The South African Bridge Federation (SABF) is the national governing body, custodian and regulator for the card game of bridge in South Africa. SABF is affiliated to the world governing body, The World Bridge Federation, the regional continental body, The African Bridge Federation (ABF), and SASCOC. Membership fees of these bodies is paid by the SABF on behalf of our members.

 

SABF board, that is elected by the clubs and unions, has 11 members. These members are all voluntary workers and receive no remuneration. All subscriptions received are directed towards furthering and promoting bridge in South Africa.

 

1. The SABF organises national competitions such as the South African Bridge Congress, and the SABF mixed teams and interprovincial tournaments.

2. The SABF selects and sends representative open, women's, mixed and senior teams to international competitions such as the African Bridge Championships, World mind games, Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup (women) and d'Orsi Bowl (seniors).  This ensures that we remain competitive in the international arena and all our members will benefit from the expertise gained when competing in these events.

3. The SABF promotes teaching of beginner’s bridge to ensure that the game will continue to be played for generations to come. It sponsors beginner’s books which are provided free of charge to new players.

4. The SABF promotes supervised bridge for improving tournament bridge players.

5. The SABF produces a minimum of 4 newsletters per year. These provide information regarding what is happening in all the unions and interesting, informative teaching articles.

6. Bulletins are regularly produced and distributed reporting on major tournaments in which our members are participating.

7. The SABF has an Ethics and Disciplinary committee that has the power to investigate and prosecute any reprehensible behaviour by our members. This goes a long way to ensure that our tournaments are run in a fair, amiable and pleasant manner.

8. All SABF tournaments are run by trained tournament directors. This ensures that our events are run by the rules which also contributes to providing a safe and pleasant experience for our members when they play in our tournaments. Training of tournament directors from club level to national events is sponsored by the SABF.

9. The SABF has an up-to-date website providing our members with information about upcoming tournaments, results of recent tournaments, masterpoints and performance indices, links to bridge resources.

10. The SABF has a full database of all our members and regularly communicates with them. Access to the database, restricted to members only, allows our members to easily keep contact with other players.

11.  The SABF maintains and regularly updates the Masterpoint and performance indices of our players. These are important markers of how you are improving and progressing. Certificates of achievements in these areas will be issued regularly to our members.  

12. The SABF will appoint safe-guarding officers who will be available to protect you against bullying, intimidation and reprehensible behaviour from other members. The names and contact details of safe-guarding officers will be published on the website and members should feel free to confidentially contact them with any issues that may arise in the playing arena.

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