Category: Club News

Stan and Glenis focussed on accurate placement of boules today, setting four different tasks for participants to complete, all of them quite taxing as the shots were quite long. We moved between the tasks, with Stan and Glen and Gavin offering hints along the way. “Get it high”, “Keep your arm straight”, “That was across your body” and “Good shot” were frequent calls. Games continued on the other pistes while coaching was done.

The next formalised coaching session will be after our Saturday Competition on 20 November and Gavin, Stan and Glenis are available at other times when they are at the Club.

Just about a full house at the Club today for a Melbourne Cup Lunch. Many thanks to Janet, Michael and Marty for looking after the lunch orders and to Carol for doing the sweeps and our unique “Prospect Cup”. The “Prospect Cup” was a little different this year with the six horses being auctioned before the race and the owner/trainer of the winning horse took the auction funds – a whopping $104.

A good time had by all!!

Gavin concentrated on assisting players to get height into their throws during today’s coaching session, while giving feedback as members sent their boules over their choice of height in an attempt to get into the circle. Both experienced and relatively new players benefitted from this exercise. Many thanks, Gavin. Gavin will continue to offer assistance to players when he is at the Club and it is requested by members.

Glenis and Stan are pleased to offer coaching courses on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month, from 3.00 pm to 4.00 pm on the 1st Saturday and after the Saturday Competition until 5.00 pm on the 3rd Saturday of the month. These fixed coaching events do not preclude casual coaching as and when necessary.

Join in the fun and see how your game can be improved. The pistes are still available for games for those not participating in the coaching.

Van and Gavin were the overall victors in Club de Petanque D’Adelaide’s Sabella Cup on Sunday 10 October. Congratulations to them and to all other winners in the various divisions and thanks to the Club de Petanque D’Adelaide for hosting the event.

Laurie Anderson, a long time member who recently celebrated his 90th birthday at the Club, brought along an article from the National COTA News, December 2000 of which he is the author. In that article Laurie wrote:

Petanque, generally regarded as being as French as the Eiffel Tower, may in fact have evolved from an Egyptian ball game. Archaeologists involved in a recent dig in Egypt discovered evidence in the sarcophagus of a prince who lived several centuries before Christ, of a game that resembled Petanque.

It is generally accepted that the modern version of the game originated in the South of France, in a village called Ciotat near Marseilles in the early 1900s.

Ernest Pitiot is credited with having adapted the throwing action of an earlier form of the game to suit a disabled friend who was finding it difficult to play.

What do you think???

Shooting was continued in today’s Coaching when Stan and Glenis set up challenges for us hoping to improve our form. The first challenge was to see how many shots it took to get seven boules out of the triangle, over long and short distances. We then moved to shooting one boule from a circle, without interfering with a second boule and lastly we aimed to shoot the cochinet out of the circle. A great session, Stan and Glenis, and we thank you.

We had five tables of competitors for our 2021 Quiz Night, calling themselves Horse with No Name, Brainiacs, Secret 7, Google Less, and Universally Challenged. Teams worked their way through five rounds of ten questions covering Proverbs/Sayings (all teams scored 10/10!!!), Geography, Arts, Sports and finishing with a Mixed Bag. Also thrown in by Quizmaster, Jan, was a set of Wordwheels and Scrambled Words where teams could win bonus points for being the fastest and most accurate to submit completed answer sheets. Supper time was not a time to slacken off as teams had 25 business logos to identify.

The Secret 7 team on table 3 were the overall winners, scoring 59.5 points and Brainiacs (Table 2) and Google Less (Table 4) tied for second place. There were only 3 points difference in the scores of the winners and the fifth team, so well done to all.

Special thanks to our President, Allan, and Vice President, Brett, for their help on the bar and with dishes and at one stage they had to step in to adjudicate some results. Thanks also to those who helped to distribute supper.

Thank you also to our attendees for being so willing to participate and add to the evening.

We recently lost one of our Founding Members, Sue Williams, and remembered her, with love and thanks for her contribution over the past 25 years, on Saturday 25 September.

Sue, with her husband Brett, gave outstanding service right up to the last month of her life. We are indebted to her as a quality player and manager in South Australian and National Petanque teams, club photographer, and fundraiser in the club’s early days. She will be fondly remembered for giving so much of herself to our club and will remain forever in our hearts and memories.

A wonderful crowd today for Laurie Anderson’s celebration for his 90th birthday. Laurie was born on 31/7/1931 and the recent lockdown meant his celebrations had to be postponed until today. His family and Club friends gathered to celebrate and Laurie was presented with a medal for being “Our Saturday Hero”.

Laurie was born in Bo’ness Scotland (20mins from Edinburgh) and arrived in Australia in January, 1971. His daughter Liz and son John attended the celebrations and his son Bill joined in during the speeches by phone.

We all wish Laurie many happy, healthy years to come.

We had wonderful sunshine and a great crowd for this month’s Saturday Competition with 28 players competing, making a very healthy prize pool. Four players scored 13 in both of their games – Alison, Richard H, John and Van. Alison and Van each have a one point handicap, having won a previous competition, so it was then a count back between Richard H and John. John took the booty home, having only 3 points scored against him while Richard H had 18.

The September Saturday Competition will be held on 18 September. 3.00 pm kick off, with registrations by 2.55 pm, please.

Many members took the opportunity to get some coaching tips from Gavin, Glenis and Stan prior to the Competition. Glenis and Stan focused on Pointing skills and will look at Shooting next session which will be held on 4 September. Due to the State Triples Competition coaching will not be held next Saturday, 28 August.