The American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) is made up of 25 Districts in the USA, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda. Each District is responsible for Bridge administration in its’ area and has a Director on the ACBL Board of Directors. Each District is made up of a number of Units, which are responsible for bridge in their area. Each unit is represented on the District Board and has voting rights based on the percentage of the District’s bridge population that the Unit has.
ACBL District 1 is officially known as the Eastern Canadian Bridge Conference. It is made up of 6 Units in Eastern Canada. See page District 1 Units. These Units are responsible for running Sectional Tournaments as well as organizing the local aspects of ACBL wide events and relationships with ACBL Clubs.
District 1 is responsible for 4 Regionals per year, which it delegates the running of to the local Unit. These regionals are:
- CanAt (June/July): in Halifax (even numbered years) and in New-Brunswick (odd numbered years
- CanAm (August): in Montreal
- National Capital (October): in Ottawa
- Split Regional (May):
In odd numbered years: split Québec City with a Maritime or Kingston location
In even numbered years: split Québec City with Kingston
The District is also responsible for the local organization of ACBL wide events such as the North American Pairs, Grand National Teams and a District–wide Charity Game.
Many members are also members of the Canadian Bridge Federation (CBF) which represents Canada on Canadian international bridge matters and runs special events for Canadian members. Units 230 and 194 members live in CBF Zone 1 CBF and Units 192, 151, 152 and 199 are in CBF Zone 2.
District 1 is the only District made up solely of Canadian members. It is also the only officially bilingual (English-French) District in the ACBL Its member live in a large geographic area stretching from Kingston, Ont. to the Atlantic Ocean and from the US border to the Arctic. Members live in 3 Time Zones (Eastern, Atlantic and Newfoundland) covering 2.5 hours.