Night of the Stars is a high profile and very good natured bridge Pro-Am in which all bridge players can join together to raise money for charity. Andrew Robson has often referred to this event in his column in The Times as, “the flagship event in the world of charity bridge” and The New York Times described the event as “the Who’s Who of British bridge…” In addition to these newspapers, we regularly feature in The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, English Bridge, a variety of bridge websites around the world and rumour has it, even on the evening news on French television.
Thanks to the support and generosity of so many, this event continues to smash record after record since its beginning eight years ago. The Night of the Stars 2014 was supported by more Stars and ordinary bridge players than ever before. We sent nearly £80,000 to charity over the last two years and careful management ensured that our charities received every penny donated for Stars, the raffle and silent auction items as all expenses were covered by separate, specific donations and sponsorships.
The Stars of 2015 so far include: Fulvio Fantoni, Boye Brogeland, Andrew Robson, Artur Malinowski, Ben Green, Bob Rowlands, Colin Simpson, Dafydd Jones, David Burn, David Gold, David Price, Ed Scerri, Espen Erichsen, Gad Chadha, Gary Jones, Graham Osborne, Heather Dhondy, Janet de Botton, Jeffrey Allerton, Jeremy Dhondy, Joe Fawcett, John Holland, Lee Rosenthal, Martin Garvey, Martin Hoffman, Michael Byrne, Mike Bell, Nevena Senior, Nick Sandqvist, Norman Selway, Patrick Jourdain, Peter Crouch, Peter Lee, Rob Cliffe, Sally Brock, Simon Cope, Stelio Di Bello, Susan Stockdale, Thor-Erik Hoftaniska, Tommy Garvey, Tom Townsend, Victor Silverstone and Willie Whittaker.
This year’s analysis of hands will be written by: Barry Rigal, David Bird, Eric Kokish, Fiona Brown, Hugh McGann, Mike Lawrence, Phillip Alder and Ron Klinger and edited by Simon Cochemé.
The Night of the Stars actually consists of two events. The first, is the auction of Stars and Charity Pairs, with auctioneer Paul Mendelson. This will take place at Wimbledon Bridge Club on Sunday November 23. It is not necessary to attend the auction if one wishes to bid for a Star and many Stars will be sold before the auction in order to reduce the length of the live auction.
There is lots of information about the event and our fantastic silent auction prizes, which anyone can bid for, on our website www.nightofthestars.org.uk . Please email me if you are interested in playing with a Star, our silent auction prizes or if your club would like to play our hands on the night and receive our wonderful booklet with analysis of the hands. My email address is terry@nightofthestars.org.uk .
The Night of the Stars, when the Stars join us to play with their lucky partners, will take place at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney on Thursday February 26, 2015.
The Night of the Stars 2015 is in aid of: Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, Maggie’s, Mencap and React .
Anyone interested in making a small donation can do so by clicking on the Virgin icon at the beginning of this article. I wonder how much we would raise if every duplicate bridge player just gave £1!
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Terry Hewett