John has been Hosting, Directing and Running Bridge Holidays for over 15 Years, and with Sarah for 6 Years. John also plays regularly for the County Bridge Team as well as playing weekly with Andrew Kambites (Author of many Bridge Books). Before Bridge John ran a successful Photography Business across the UK working with The Sealife Centres, Haven Holidays and Pontins.
Despite only playing Bridge herself for 6 years, Sarah is a Qualified Bridge Director (Club Standard) and Bridge Teacher specialising in teaching Beginners. Away from Bridge, Sarah has her own Business as a Wedding and Funeral Celebrant.
Both John and Sarah love people, and have spent their entire lives in customer related jobs. They are very passionate about Bridge and enjoy getting new people to take up the game as well as helping more experienced Players improve their Bridge Play and Knowledge.
Bridge experience
How long have you been playing bridge?
John - 16 Years seriously.
Sarah – 6 Years
Do you teach bridge?
John – 14 Years (Advanced Level)
Sarah – 4 Years (Beginners / Improvers)
Director? How long and what level?
John – 16 Years (Club Director), 4 Years (County Director)
Sarah – 2 Years (Club Director)
Do you provide seminars?
Yes, we are continually Teaching both at home in the UK, and on holidays. We have a plethora of Seminars aimed at all Levels – Beginners, Improvers and Advanced.
John is now a very Experienced and High Ranked Player so has the confidence to deliver to Guests at all Levels.
Sarah is delivering Lessons aimed at both Beginners and Improvers almost every day of the week.
Hosting style
We believe although Bridge Holidays should be competitive it is really important to look after everyone on the Holiday, whatever standard they are. It would be easy to say to guests that they are not good enough; but without the Weaker Players most holidays would not have enough numbers to enable it to run.
In the Bridge Room we are keen for the Weaker Players to also have a chance of winning so we are great advocates of Seeded Teams and also Handicapped Pairs with a handicap being awarded based on their results on the Holiday. This format of Game is appreciated by all standards as the Stronger Players often feel guilty for continually winning.
We aim for our Holidays to be fun, emphasising it is Holiday Bridge. We are also often keen to provide extra activities which allow the Guests to socialise outside the Bridge Room (quizzes, bingo, mini golf, mollky, table tennis etc) which means that they have a better than expected Holiday and will often choose to join us for their next Holiday. Sarah tends to be Mum to everyone, finding a Guest’s lost property before they even realise it’s lost.
Other hobbies and interests
John has always enjoyed playing all Sports and is proud to have represented his County at three different events – chess (age 13), hockey and now Bridge. In his past he has enjoyed skiing where he was an area manager for Crystal Ski Holidays for eight years, and more recently he has enjoyed playing pickleball, building Lego and supporting Norwich City Football Club.
Sarah is not so sporty but since meeting John she has learnt to swim, play pickleball, ski and most importantly learnt to play Bridge. She loves Singing (but is not very good at it) and will dance whenever she gets an opportunity.
A fun fact about John & Sarah
John was at Headingly in 1981 and placed a bet of 50p on England to beat Australia at odds of 500 – 1 against. His winnings of £250 meant a lot to him that day. Several years later John was a Professional Photographer on the SS Canberra Cruise Ship when Bob Willis (The Bowler who had taken all the Australian Wickets that day) joined the ship as a guest speaker. John immediately offered to buy Bob Willis a drink who replied "No Need as Rodney Marsh and Dennis Lillee (two of the Australian Team) had already seen him alright". It was rumoured they had put £50.00 on each and won £25,000 each. If only!
Before Bridge Sarah was a wedding celebrant and she will always remember one wedding in particular when all of the Guests were dressed up as cowboys and she was delivering the Ceremony whilst being shot at with toy guns by the pageboys and ushers.
