News

Not content with the Huddersfield Examiner we’re now to be found in the Yorkshire Ridings magazine.  As well as features on major cities tucked away on page 32 is an article called “The french game that’s conquering West Yorkshire” and you can see pictures taken at Heckmondwike, Honley and of course Huddersfield with accompanying text saying how great a game Petanque is. The article is by a local man who you might remember turning up, asking questions and taking photos in the autumn. The only thing missing is contact details for the clubs but hopefully people will be able to find Heckmondwike, Honley and Huddersfield terrains.

The mag costs £2-25 and we found our copy in Tesco’s. If you’re a quick reader you could read the whole article in 5 minutes but you might need longer trying to spot people you know in the photos. I’ll bring my copy this sunday, Let’s prepare for a rush of members starting with the meeting on Sunday at noon!

It’s time to start

The weather’s been quite kind and (famous last words) no sign of significant snow and ice so let’s pull together the blog followers, the email followers and get this show on the road.

What show? A petanque club based at the Greenhead Park terrain with between 20 and 50 members, regular meetings, the occasional club competition and a social fixture with our nearest neighbours (Heckmondwike).

To set things going there will be a meeting at 12 noon on Sunday 23^rd February at the community room at the Park (next to the café). All welcome; agenda supplied on the day but the basic aim will be to discuss and decide on what sort of club we want.

 

After the meeting I hope we can start taking members from in March with a view to holding an inaugural AGM in April where more formal things can take place. A committee, a constitution, insurance, membership fees, dates of club meetings, volunteers to help organise the club sessions.

We’ll need a base for club stuff (spare boules, paperwork, numbers) and I hope the Community room will provide this.

We’ll need to agree on some days for club sessions for members only and I think we’ll have to continue with Sunday afternoons in the short term and add a weekday afternoon session and in summer an evening session. We’ll also have to organise some competitions and fun events.

Hope you can make it. Once we’ve decided some basics we’ll run for a few weeks and then hold an AGM, collect subs and confirm or change this.

To all who have visited the terrain over the last 10 weeks, to all the regulars who have turned up many times, to the steering group for steering, to all the children who have tried the game, to all the regional players who’ve sent an encouraging message, to anyone who’s looked at the blog (over 1,300 hits and 15 followers), and to Kirklees Council for building it.

Last Sunday we agreed to have a break in January and start taster sessions again in February. But the weather forecast is so good for Sunday 29th December (sunny and 10 degrees) that we’ll have a session on that day then take a break for the winter. Bring any leftovers from Xmas and I’ll bring a table and we can maybe have a bit of a do to end the year and make plans for 2014.

Sunday December 1st saw a visitor. Ted Beetham, expert player, qualified coach and a nice bloke to boot called in and played a few games and made some nice comments about the terrain.

Some regulars turned up for the 3rd or 4th Sunday (Sue, Sandra, Michael, Christine and Charlie) and a few newcomers as usual.

We’ve had some cards printed and give them out to interested people. All in all it’s going well.  Sunday 8th as usual with Paul and the spare boules but following Sunday (15th) he’s got a family do to attend. Back to normal on 22nd.

Lovely sunny day today (but only 7 degrees so Damart underwear was in order) but plenty of games played and so far two more followers for the blog. As well as the newcomers above we saw Charlie, Sue, Roy & Liz, a park ranger and lots of people who watched but didn’t play or who looked over the hedges and some of  Huddersfield Croquet Club.

All in all another successful Sunday. Let’s hope it’s not wet next weekend and we can do it all again.