Trophies

[jallerton]

My County Association runs several annual competitions and each one has a trophy. Somebody has proposed that we sell the trophies on the grounds that they are too much hassle to deal with and nobody wants them.

 

What do you think? If you win a bridge event, would you want to receive a trophy?

[Vampyr]

I quite like being presented with a trophy, getting it engraved with my name, etc.

 

If you did sell the trophies, you could use the money to get really heavy whiskey glasses, which IMO are always a welcome prize.

[MickyB]

I think it's nice to be presented with them but don't usually take them home.

 

Presumably many of the trophies have been donated by players or in memory of players - surely selling them would be poor form?

[Bbradley62]

I don't particularly like traditional trophies, but etched wine glasses, beer mugs or coffee mugs are nice. I still love (and use) the rocks glasses I won in New Jersey over 25 years ago.

 

EDIT: But I also agree with Micky: if there is a memorial trophy that gets engraved with the winners' names each year, selling it would be rude.

Edited January 26, 2014 by Bbradley62

[Vampyr]

I think it's nice to be presented with them but don't usually take them home.

 

I think that people in general tend to take them home (I usually do) although sometimes this results in a headache for the organisers chasing them up for the following year!

[sallyally]

hmmmmmmm, I have a plastic trophy from the very first NABC I attended. I am sure my partner still has hers too. I am not planning to part with it! I think we played 0 -5 or - 20 and came 1st. We had a lot of fun.

 

Just a quick story, - we showed up for a 9:00 a.m. game only to find there was no game scheduled. There was another woman there also disappointed not to find a game. Sitting there in the lobby or mezzanine was a man reading a newspaper. This gal asked him if he would come and join us for a game of bridge to which request he kindly aquiesed.

 

He continued to read his paper while we played and we were in awe as he seemed to know everything we had in our hands.

 

Later we learned he was someone who is paid to play. I wish we had been able to find out his name.

[blackshoe]

My then partner and I won a trophy - a silver bowl - for something or other bridge related some years ago. It was presented with an apology for its poor condition and a request that we polish it up during the year we were to keep it. My partner took it home. She gave it to me - still unpolished - two weeks before it was due to be returned to be presented to the next recipients. :rolleyes:

[mr1303]

I like receiving one.

 

The trouble is, you have to go and get it engraved, and then you have to play the event the next year or post it off.

 

I prefer to get one you keep and be done with it.

[Vampyr]

I like receiving one.

 

The trouble is, you have to go and get it engraved, and then you have to play the event the next year or post it off.

 

I prefer to get one you keep and be done with it.

 

You don't have to take it though, and if you don't the organisers will engrave it.

 

I don't like trophies that you keep. What do you do with them? We have loads in the loft. If you are given something to keep, it should be something useful.

[Vampyr]

Gosh, another duplicate. Keeps happening with my mini iPad.

[paulg]

A photograph of being presented with the trophy, just before handing it back, seems ideal.

[MickyB]

A photograph of being presented with the trophy, just before handing it back, seems ideal.

 

Which means the county only needs one trophy to cover all events, sounds perfect.

[PhilKing]

Too much bragging in this thread, imo.

[Vampyr]

Too much bragging in this thread, imo.

 

Well, the only people who would have an opinion on the matter are those who have received trophies; there is no point in downplaying that fact.

[barmar]

Is it just the people in this forum who are so modest about their bridge achievements that they don't want to show them off on their mantels, or do you think it's bridge players in general? Don't players in other sports enjoy having rows of trophies in their living rooms, for visitors to see? Why are bridge players different?

 

I don't know if he still does it, but there's a guy in our unit who would send notices of the winners (in every flight and stratum) of our Sectional tournaments to all the local newspapers; they would run the notice if anyone from that town was on a team. I remember seeing my name in the paper a few years back, and thinking that winning strat B in a sectional Swiss Team wasn't really newsworthy. Then again, they also run wedding announcements in the paper -- surely everyone who knows the couple already knows they're getting married, so this is uninteresting "news" to the rest of us. But if I ever managed to come home with a Vanderbilt win, I think that would deserve a paragraph or two.

[Antrax]

My club gives an option of a plastic trophy or free entry to the next game. People typically choose a single trophy for each type of club night, then switch over to the free game.

[Vampyr]

I don't know how much a silver trophy is worth, but selling it is a one-off; I don't think that this would, for example, allow the prize money for the associated event to be increased substantially. Meanwhile the trophy is part of the club's heritage, with the names of the winners back through the mists of time engraved on it... maybe it is the people who win them again and again who don't want the trophies. So maybe the trophies could be used instead for different events: handicap, newcomer, simple systems, junior/youth etc or for an inter-club competition.

[barmar]

My club gives an option of a plastic trophy or free entry to the next game. People typically choose a single trophy for each type of club night, then switch over to the free game.

Trophies for ordinary club games? That seems excessive. Reminds me of the modern practice of giving everyone a prize in kids' sports competitions, to bolster everyone's self-esteem.

 

Our club gives a trophy to the winners of the annual two-session club championship. For other games, the winners in each direction get a free entry (if the number of tables exceeds a threshold, we give free entries to the winners of each strat).

[Antrax]

Trophies for ordinary club games?

The way it works is that each club evening is a "round" in a monthly competition. So if you play Wed night, your results from all Wed nights this month are aggregated, and the top pair receives a trophy (or next week's entry fee).

[awm]

I'd prefer something actually useful, like mugs or wine glasses or a nice pen with the name of the tournament and/or event. Sometimes regional tournaments in the US give these out (although they often have less-useful prizes too). Trophies are okay but they eventually end up just taking up space...

[jallerton]

Well, the only people who would have an opinion on the matter are those who have received trophies; there is no point in downplaying that fact.

 

No, other people have opinions on this matter.

 

Suppose you haven't won a competition yet, but aspire to do so. Would you want to receive a trophy if and when you do win?

Suppose you don't expect to ever win anything. You might still have a view on what other people should receive when they win.

In my county, some of the people who feel strongly about this subject are people who don't tend to win anything.

A member of the county committee has expressed the view that it's difficult to keep track of where all the trophies are, and that it is a lot of effort to persuade the previous year's winners to return the trophy at the appropriate time.

[CSGibson]

trophies in our area are handled in the following way: Winning a trophy entitles you to have your name engraved on it. Trophies are kept at the club, and there is never anything taken home by the winners.

 

I like the method. I get to look at the history of the event when I visit a club, and if I win a trophy, I'd rather not have it in my home/be responsible for tracking it down the next year.

[Cthulhu D]

trophies in our area are handled in the following way: Winning a trophy entitles you to have your name engraved on it. Trophies are kept at the club, and there is never anything taken home by the winners.

 

I like the method. I get to look at the history of the event when I visit a club, and if I win a trophy, I'd rather not have it in my home/be responsible for tracking it down the next year.

 

This is how we do it as well, and you may get something else to take home (my last win was a cheque, a medallion and a pen, two before that were cash and bottles of wine). It presumably saves the organisers a lot of hassle as well. I cannot image letting people take the trophies home! You'd never get them back.

[Vampyr]

No, other people have opinions on this matter.

 

Suppose you haven't won a competition yet, but aspire to do so. Would you want to receive a trophy if and when you do win?

 

You are right.

 

Suppose you don't expect to ever win anything. You might still have a view on what other people should receive when they win.

 

Not as clear, apart from how much of the budget of an event should be allocated to cash prizes.

 

In my county, some of the people who feel strongly about this subject are people who don't tend to win anything.

A member of the county committee has expressed the view that it's difficult to keep track of where all the trophies are, and that it is a lot of effort to persuade the previous year's winners to return the trophy at the appropriate time.

 

So people who haven't and won't win a trophy want to sell them? I think that it probably matters how much money would be raised. If a really significant amount would be realised, which would allow the county to do something really special for its members, then maybe there is an upside. Is the collection of trophies really worth more than one or two thousand pounds? If not, then just getting rid of them for the sake of not having them seems a wrong-headed thing to do.

 

If the main objection is the difficulty of keeping track of them, just don't let people take them home. But still present them, have them engraved, and display them at the event (you could even have all of the trophies on display at events. I think that people would be really interested to look at them and see who the past winners were).

 

For what it's worth, in my county, each major event has a different main organiser, so a particular committee member has to worry about the whereabouts of only one trophy. Unless they are the organiser of the Lederer, which has three trophies.

[Siegmund]

"Traveling" trophies belong on the wall of the clubhouse, engraved at the sponsor's expense each year, not in someone's living room.

 

Practical trophies of some kind for all the winners are a very nice idea that is out of fashion most places now. The Montana tournaments all give them: last year we got copper knickknacks in Butte, handcrafted pottery in Helena, engraved glasses in Great Falls, metal water bottles in Missoula... but the idea hasn't spread south. Except for the occasional novice game, nobody in Idaho or Utah gives anything. This year Missoula gave free plays (good for a year, if you need to use them at next year's tournament) instead of buying a product to give away... it was a nice gesture, but it didn't feel as special as what they used to do.

 

Of course that may be because I played for years in a club where the winners every week got either a free play or their entry fee back in cash. I was sort of offended the first time I won somewhere else and got nothing but a weird look from the club manager after the session when I came up to him with my hand out... found out the hard way that is rare too.