November 2021 Newsletter

Nottingham City Petanque Club Newsletter No.36 ~ 22nd November 2021    

Before any talk about playing matters, I must highlight the important matter about the role of the Club Secretary. Following Keir’s resignation, this post has been vacant since September and our Constitution requires us to have someone as the Club Secretary. All club members have been advised of the vacancy but no-one has come forward to take on the role. You need not wait for the AGM in January to stand for the post as you could be co-opted onto Committee now. As I have said previously the role could be broken down into discrete elements so need not be too onerous a job. If you wish to discuss what might be involved please let me know. The brutal truth of the matter is that if no-one has volunteered for this key position by the time of the AGM, the club may be in a position where it cannot continue to function, and no-one wants that to happen. So please act now.
Talking of the AGM, this will be taking place on the 24th January 2022 at the Balfour Club in Arnold. Full details about how to attend, how to put forward a motion and how to stand for a Committee position will be sent out shortly. Do keep an eye open for that. Before you can vote at the AGM you need to be a fully paid-up member of the club so please renew your membership before the end of the year. Again, information about how to do that will be going out soon.
Let’s talk about how the club is doing. We successfully negotiated the first hurdle in the Eurocup on 7th November, by beating Mansfield 3-2 and now will go on to play Leicester away in the next round some time in the New Year.
The following day the club was represented by six club members at an extremely wet and cold Worksop Arena, with club member Chris Brown, playing with Robin Winter’s daughter Megan finishing in joint second place in the Mercia Mixed Doubles competition.
Our Firecracker Triples event was contested by 29 teams on 7th November, including teams containing England players getting in some match practice before the World Championships taking place in Spain this month. However, the winners were much more local, being a team from Killarney Park, so congratulations to them. And well done to all from the club who either took part or helped to put together what was a very successful day.
And at those World Championships, a certain honorary club member of ours was in Spain representing Scotland. Well done Zena Forbes !
On 14th November Rainworth hosted a Mens’ Open Doubles Competition. A strong field in this one, but no-one from the club made the top three places. But on a cold Mansfield day last Sunday, the club finished top of the Winter League standings, having won 18, drawn 3 and losing 6 games out of the 27 played against 9 other Mercia clubs. Congratualtions to all who took part, and we now will play in the Gold Play-off Finals, to be held at our place on 9th January.
That Winter League fixture had switched to Mansfield because of the works going on around the club which meant access to the car park was cut off. As you will know this has meant we have had to close the club until those works are finished which should be very soon now. Thank you for your understanding of the situation we were faced with, but hopefully we will be up and running again soon.
At our last Committee meeting, Bryan Hodges was elected as Club Captain, with Peter Newton taking on the role of vice-captain. Together they will oversee the running of competitions and the choosing of squads for various events.
​Finally, Sunday 12th December has been earmarked for our Christmas Fuddle – when you are asked to bring something along for us to eat and drink following a light-hearted bit of play in the morning – details to follow.