Bridge: A Mind Sport for All (BAMSA) is a charitable project based at the University of Stirling in Scotland, under the direction of Professor Samantha Punch (who is also a Scottish international bridge player).
At the end of this month, BAMSA is hosting an online conference entitled “Bridging Academia, Policy and Practice” over a four-day period from 28 June to 1 July. More than 70 presenters and panellists from 20 countries (including our own Mary Kelly-Rogers, and Norma Irwin and Norman Lacey from the NIBU) will contribute to sessions on a wide variety of topics. The conference is an open forum for the exchange of information, research, and ideas across the entire bridge spectrum. While some of the material will be academic in its focus, there should be plenty to appeal to bridge players, teachers, administrators, promoters, and marketers. A key goal is to promote bridge as a mindsport that offers social, health, and cognitive benefits for players of all ages. The seminars will address questions such as:
- what health benefits does bridge offer, and how can we communicate those to potential players, potential sponsors, and public authorities;
- what does the future of bridge looks like after a global pandemic that has shut down in-person activity for a year or more;
- how can we recruit more, and younger, players to the game we love;
- how can we promote the game and improve its image amongst non-bridge players;
- are men and women bridge players different, and should women’s bridge be segregated, or not;
- how extensive has cheating been in the period of digital bridge, and what can be done about it.
The main topics to be covered are: Bridge as a Mindsport and Wellbeing & Bridge (Day 1), with a keynote address from Professor Martin Seligman (Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and US international bridge player); the Impact of the Global Pandemic on Bridge and Digital Bridge & Cheating (Day 2); Gender, Age & Intergenerationality in the Bridge Community (Day 3); and Learning, Education & Development in Bridge (Day 4). Broadly, the first and third days are theoretical in focus; the second and fourth are practical. But all sessions will be tailored to a non-academic audience as well as an academic one. All the presentations will be recorded for future viewing, and, in addition to the live sessions, a number of pre-recorded presentations are already available to view on the BAMSA website.
There is also an open pairs bridge game, for all conference attendees, on the RealBridge platform on Tuesday 29 June at 3 p.m., with a partnership desk available.
You’ll find full details of the conference schedule below, along with a registration link. Please note that you need to pre-register for any sessions you would like to attend; you will then receive the relevant invitation links by email. We hope that Irish bridge players, teachers, and administrators will find something to interest them in this very useful and well-timed conference.
BAMSA Conference