The 40th anniversary of the birth of the World Bridge Federation was celebrated Tuesday evening at a banquet at the Lille City Hall. Many persons who have played a major part in the history of the World Bridge Federation were present.

Many of the officials who have made the WBF what it is today - persons who have served on the WBF Executive and others who have made contributions in many ways - were happy to greet each other once again. In addition, a large number of present and former world champions were on hand.

The banquet itself was very upscale, with fine entertainment and excellent food and wine. Two speakers told of the history and achievements of the World Bridge Federation. The first was Jaime Ortiz-Patino, who was present when the WBF was formed in 1958, and who served as WBF president for 10 years starting in 1976. Patino told many of the circumstances of the founding, including information about many of the persons involved. He also gave a brief history of what has happened with the organzition over the past 40 years. The second speaker was WBF President José Damiani. The highlights of his speech follow:

Tonight we celebrate 40 years of the World Bridge Federation. This is a good time to remind ourselves why it is so important to have a vigorous and effective world organization. Bridge is the world's supreme social and intellectual game. It is also emphatically a participant game, by which I mean that it is a game people prefer to actually play rather than watch.

We should be proud of this, but is does have its downside. It makes it difficult for us to gain access to television, despite our efforts and, for the time being, our occasional successes. We are working on a dedicated worldwide satellite channel, possibly in different languages, using the pay-per-view system in order to overcome the huge financial disadvantage we have compared with games such as football, basketball, motor racing and so on. There are in fact hundreds of individual sporting figures who each earn more in a year than the entire annual budget of the World Bridge Federation.

Yet our membership grows in strength and we can be confident that it will continue to grow. Today we have 110 NBOs (with another 15 potential ones) and 700,000 affiliated members. There are with 1.5 million club members and 50 million bridge players throughout the world. We also have a favourable image with the general public. Bridge players are recognized by the world at large as men and women who are socially and mentally active. These are qualities that will be increasingly valued by society as people live longer and have more leisure. Today, however, we have to compete for public attention with a growing number of other leisure activities. To present our case, it is vital that bridge should have a vigorous and effective world organization. That is the reason why, on a long-term basis, we believe that the worldwide Bridge Teaching program in schools, which received the agreement of UNESCO, will provide a tremendous development for young people.

We can therefore be grateful for the foresight of the handful of delegates from the United States, Australia and Europe who, in 1958, founded the World Bridge Federation with Baron Robert de Nexon as president during the European Championships in Oslo. The Baron was ideal for the purpose: president of the European Bridge League, a business leader and a charismatic figure as well. He also had vision. At first the Bermuda Bowl was the World Bridge Federation's only trophy, but just two years later de Nexon launched the first World Team Olympiad which quickly became almost equally as prestigious.

1958 was a landmark year for two more reasons. For the first time the Bermuda Bowl contest, which hitherto has been a match between the United States and Europe, was joined by another continent, South America. Other zones soon followed and today we have complete world coverage. In 1958, too, for the first time, the Bermuda Bowl was presented on Bridge-O-Rama, as it was then called. This was thanks to the initiative of the Federazione Italiana de bridge, who in that year staged the Bermuda Bowl at Como. Later on we developed this technology to achieve the nearly perfect Bridge Vision that we have today.

It is easy to forget that in 1958 contract bridge was still a comparatively young game. The WBF's founding delegates rightly believed that in order for it to flourish it must be governed by the same rules and ethics worldwide, and must hold prestigious annual championships to win public recognition and attract the best players from every country. These are still the two most important functions of the World Bridge Federation, although a number of other necessary activities have also been added. The staging of the annual world championships has attracted many talented and selfless persons, and one man has played a starring role.

Jaime Ortiz-Patiño became our president in 1976 and served for ten productive years. He is a man of quite exceptional determination, vision and drive. Jimmy took office at a time when our world championships badly needed a strong hand to ensure that they would remain above suspicion. Jimmy met the challenge head on, overcoming fierce opposition to the introduction of table screens, revising our statutes, and setting up new championship events that have proved highly successful. Jimmy stepped down in 1986 and has since been our President Emeritus. He has also created in Spain a most wonderful golf course, one of the best in the world, demonstrating that his powers and urge to achieve remain undiminished.

Other presidents have also made great contributions, notably Julius Rosenblum of New Orleans, who was Jimmy's predecessor. Julius realized that the World Bridge Federation needed an official medium of communication and, although in those days money was short, he launched 'World Bridge News', at first a labour of love with a zero budget. Other presidents who have contributed include: Denis Howard, my great friend Ernesto d'Orsi who has organized so many championships, and Bobby Wolff who really made a great improvement in the appeals process. A strong feature of most bridge organizations is that, unlike most other games, senior officials are often expert players also. The WBF is no exception. Most of our presidents, and many members of the Executive Council, have been serious competitors at the world level at some time in their careers. This is one of the factors that has helped the WBF to win the confidence of its membership.

Bridge players tend to be more than usually computer-literate. Quite a number of you here tonight work in the higher echelons of computer technology and are full of ideas about how organized bridge can make use of this technology to overcome learning barriers as well as barriers of time and distance. It is clear that our Worldwide Bridge Contest, which started with Epson and entered into the Guinness Book of Records, is a perfect example of the way bridge can be of benefit to telecommunications, in particular Internet, and to Bridge for Peace. People all over the world can play at the same time, without distinction of age, sex, race or religion.

And finally, thanks to you, the champions, we hope that we will meet the IOC requirements to get into the Olympic Games. Next month we are going to have the first IOC Grand Prix in Lausanne, in the Olympic Museum, in the presence of Mr. Juan-Antonio Samaranch, president of the IOC. This is clearly a great achievement for our policy and our strategy that should contribute to changing definitively our image with the public and in the media. This explains why from now on we will organize different types of competition, some being for the elite while others will enable the mass of bridge players to participate