Torrisholme BC

Since, through some weird arrangement of the cup draws, neither the ‘A’ nor the ‘B’ team were ever going to have a match during the next cup week (W/C 22/01/2006), we’ve decided that we should have a friendly match instead of cancelling the hall. So, there you go, Torrisholme ‘A’ versus Torrisholme ‘B’, Monday, 22nd January. Usual time and place. Possibly go for a beer afterwards…

The ‘A’, ‘C’ & ‘D’ teams all won their cup matches last week, and I’m still awaiting the results of the ‘B’ team match. So, next cup week we have the ‘A’ vs ‘B’ on Monday evening, and, if my calculations are correct, the ‘C’ away on Monday night at Ingleton ‘C’ (have fun) with the ‘D’ team away on the Wednesday to Storey’s ‘C’ (St. Martins College).

News just in: The ‘B’ team lost their game. They were some 50 points up in normal scoring at the end, but Storeys ‘B’ had a +90 boost from the handicap committee.

What did you all think of the envelope system for the handicaps, by the way? I think it’s rubbish!There isn’t the interest or excitement of trying to work out how you’re doing against handicap as you’re going along, no room for tactics and the familiar (but meaningless) ‘we just need 10 per game’ stuff! It might as well be just another league game (and it’s easy to forget that it isn’t). We had a cup game last year where we knew going into the very last game that we needed just 8 points (or whatever) for a win. Now that was exciting, watching as we edged closer and closer… We got 6, so lost, but it was exciting at least. This year holds no prospect of such enjoyment.

The previously-trailed club Christmas meal was last night at Quite Simply French. See the handful of pictures I took. With apologies to the club’s newest member, Catherine, whom I failed to picture, for some reason – it certainly wasn’t intentional! Otherwise, I think everybody is in at least one of the photo’s. Enjoy.

From the League Website:

INTERNATIONAL BADMINTON COMES TO LANCASHIRE
On Thursday, 22nd February 2007, Lancashire will once again host an International Match, ENGLAND -V- GERMANY. The Venue will be The Guild Hall at Preston, commencing at 6.45pm, and will be recorded by the BBC for transmission on Grandstand the following week-end.
Germany are rapidly becoming one of the stronger squads in Europe and when the two countries last met it was a very close match. It will be a full international match with 5 events, mens and ladies singles, mens and ladies doubles and mixed doubles. Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson will be playing, together with the new Danish Open winners, Donna Kellog and Anthony Clark. England have probably one of the best squads for many years, come and see them in action.
The last two matches at The Guild Hall have been sell outs so avoid disappointment the Ticket Sales Hotline is 01908 268400 (Badminton England, Milton Keynes)
More information will follow, so to avoid disappointment get ringing!

Anyone fancy it? The last international was quite entertaining, and you may even get on telly, like what I did. I’ll put it in the calendar, anyway.

Quite Simply French – Saturday December 2nd

The Christmas meal has now been booked at Quite Simply French, 27a St. Georges Quay, Lancaster, for 8 p.m. 2/12/2006. This will be the second visit by the club this year, and the last one was thoroughly enjoyable.

This year the meal is £20 per head for 3 courses¹. There are no drinks included in that price, and any ‘additions to compliment’ must be paid for separately on the evening (don’t order in advance).

Places are strictly limited and available on a first-come-first-served basis. We require a £5 deposit and your starter and main course preference by 31/10/2006² – Give your money and choices to one of:

1. Your team captain
2. Stuart Allan
3. James Illingworth
4. Cynthia Dickinson

but Stuart should be your first port of call, really.

Here, for your convenience, the menu³.

Starters

Footnotes

1. before you ask, the third course is presumably variable and to be selected on the evening, as the menu only shows starters and main courses – I don’t know any more than that [back]
2. sorry, only 2 weeks notice, but would more notice have made any difference? [back]
3. Which can also be downloaded here [back]

As a quick reminder to all club members, the annual subs (GBP70, but see the ‘welcome’ page for exceptions) must be paid in full by 31/10/2006 for you to qualify to receive the 5 free-club-night vouchers.

Our treasurer, Lorraine, is making a list, and checking it twice, trying to find… well, you know the rest.

Seriously, if you haven’t paid in full, no vouchers. It’s a £15 saving, think about that!

You may or may not have noticed that the calendar link and mailing list link went missing from the sidebar on the main page recently. This is because of a long overdue change of host for the site because of the rubbish service offered by the last provider. Hopefully we should see better availability on the site now than previously. It does mean that I had to remove the calendar and mailing list links, though, simply because these services were hosted by the previous provider.

I have now set up a new calendar for the club, hosted by Google Calendars. You can access this in several ways: If you have a google account yourself (maybe you’ve already got Gmail or a Google calendar of your own) you can subscribe to the calendar and the events can then be overlaid on your own (Google) calender – this is what I will be doing and part of the reason I’m trialling Google for the club calendar – do this by clicking the very obvious button on the side-bar; You can link directly to the calendar using this address; or you can view the calendar on this site on the Calendar page (see also the side-bar, Pages section). I’ll gradually populate the calendar with all forthcoming events and matches. I can’t be bothered to do the whole season right now in one go, but I’ll do the next couple of weeks to be going on with.

Speaking of events, the Golf day I had been going on about for this Saturday looks like a no go at the moment – several people who wanted to come have cried off, and it turns out there’s a comp on at Morecambe anyway on Saturday. I really need to get one of our expert golfers on board to organise the golf side of the day – I don’t mind trying to organise the people to get together, but it would be handy to have someone who’s well into it to help organise tee-times and a format and help out the erm, less able with handicaps and stroke indexes and how to do stableford scoring and things. I’m thinking the Brian Forrest’s and Dave Carney’s and Dave Sowerbutt’s of the club can help out with that side – how about it guys? We’ll try and get something sorted in the next few weeks, yeah?

Follows the text from a document circulated at the end of the last Monday club night before matches start next week. Not sure how many read it, as the team selections may have held more interest. I’ll put up a page with the team selections soon, and then will keep it as current as possible.

Once again, the selection process has been extremely tricky – new faces and an additional team to select have only compounded the usual problem with selection at this time of year, namely the farcically limited time available to observe players and to select teams before matches start. With holidays and other commitments, some players have only been seen once by the selectors prior to this evening, which, as you know is the final club night before the competitive season starts next week (W/C 25th September).

Aside from observation at club nights though, the selectors have, without exaggeration, spent several hours ‘off-court’ deliberating and agonising over the opening selections, so please remember that these were not simply dashed off in the pub in a few minutes, or rashly chosen during the heat of a club night. Nevertheless, we don’t expect to get it absolutely right first time, or expect that the teams will not change throughout the rest of the season. In fact, quite the opposite, the selection process will be ongoing, and we are required by the club to make constant assessment of our choices. Remember, also, that it is our job to select teams, not players, and to select the best teams possible to ensure that the club is as successful in the league and cup competitions as it can be.

Finally, as always, if you have any concerns or queries, or if the selections have puzzled or annoyed you in some way, come and speak to us about it. That goes for the team placings and also for the pairings we’ve made. We’ve spent a long time on this and all of our selections are made with good reason – if our reasoning turns out to be faulty or groundless, we need to know about it.

James Illingworth
Pam Clemmet.
18/09/2006

• Gentlemen
1. James Illingworth.
2. Graham Hewitt.
3. Dave Carney.
• Ladies
1. Janette Sowerbutts.
2. Lorraine Cross.
3. Maureen Forrest.

‘B’ Team

• Gentlemen
1. Matthew Derham.
2. Paul Gardener.
3. Dave Sowerbutts.
• Ladies
1. Pam Clemmet.
2. Tanya Hughes.
3. Daine Williams.

‘C’ Team

• Gentlemen
1. Stewart Clark.
2. Gordon Rutter.
3. John Skelcher.
• Ladies
1. Anne Parker.
2. Lorna Stewart.
3. Diane Williams.

‘D’ Team

• Gentlemen
1. Kevin Thompson.
2. Stuart Allan.
3. Brian Forrest.
• Ladies
1. Cynthia Dickinson.
2. Helen Alexander.
3. Jo Hinde.

For information, the Yonex All England Championships 2007 take place between 7th & 11th March 2007.

See here for official information.

Not certain whether we’ll organise an ‘official’ club trip, there’s never been any interest in such a thing in the past, so I don’t imagine that’ll be any different this year.

A few of us did go down a couple of years ago, and had a thoroughly weird time…

As a follow on from the post about the league golf day, I spoke to a couple of the golfers in the club at the bowling night, and we think the club golf day is a definite goer. I’m suggesting we pencil in Saturday 23rd September – this gives us a couple of weeks to get ourselves sorted out, and hopefully the weather will have turned around a bit by then.

We have a choice of Morecambe or Heysham since we have members at each, meaning the non-members can get guest rates (£15 at Heysham) and this will help keep costs down. Personally, I’d prefer Morecambe, cos I’m a member at Heysham and like a change from time to time, but we’ll work out who’s up for it and get a concensus going – the Morecambe members might prefer Heysham for the same reasons (but we can always do it again and switch ends). We’d probably work out something where we split the total cost over all the players – this would seem a bit harsh on any of the players who are members (and so have effectively paid already), but would even out if we do it again at the other venue, I suppose.

I’ll catch up with most of you Monday night, hopefully, unless you’ve gone to the league golf event and don’t make club night!

Feel free to leave a comment about any of this, by the way…

Well, the social committee finally got their collective fingers out and sorted some bowling. By happy coincidence the date we chose for the night, 31st August 2006, was also a charity event at Morecambe Super Bowl in aid of the North-West Air Ambulance, so we were able to have 2 lanes from 7.30 until after 11 plus a buffet for £15.

Great fun, we must do it again sometime.

Pictures available on my Flickr account.

I’ve only just had word of this, and don’t know many details, but it appears that the third annual LM&D Badminton League golf competition will be held this Monday (4th September 2006) at Heysham Golf Club. As far as I know, you need to just turn up at Heysham GC at 5pm. Don’t know about the cost, can’t remember what it was last year. Don’t know if there are any restrictions either, like handicap or something. I told you I didn’t know many details.

I don’t know how long this has been ‘organised’ for, but the timing is absolute garbage as far as I’m concerned – 5 O’Clock on a Monday afternoon, and the first Monday in September?! Our first club night is on Monday at 8, so there’s no way any of us could do both. I bet other clubs are starting Monday, too.

I suggest we organise our own intra-club golf day – do it on a Saturday somewhere and have a laugh sometime before the Autumn/Winter weather really kicks in. Any takers? I know of at least 8 golfers in the club off the top of my head.

I’ve added a mailing list to the site. The intention is to use it for general club announcements and social news and such. Subscribe via this link.

If you are a club member, I strongly urge you to subscribe. You won’t be deluged with pointless mail, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

I toyed with the idea of setting up two lists, one for general club information (e.g. cancelled matches, club night changes and so on) and one for social matters. The idea was that you could sign-up for club news without needing to hear from the social committee ever, if you didn’t want to, but, on reflection, there’s going to be so few mails over a season it seems a bit pointless. If there’s any demand for it, it can still be done. Let me know – email or add a comment to this post.

The link to the mailing list is also in the side bar =====>

Things have naturally been a little quiet on the site over the past few months, since this is a badminton club website and no club badminton has been going on, but there’s a new season just around the corner, a committee meeting next week and we’ve had the AGM, so here’s some stuff to get things going again:

I’ve updated the club diary with the dates of the first club nights of season, but because I’m far too nice, here they are for your convenience:

• Monday 4th September
• Monday 11th September
• Monday 18th September

All at Lancaster & Morecambe College, natch. Please note that these are really team selection and practice evenings, and they will be busy. Club nights proper will start at Salt Ayre on Thursday 28th September and should happen every week. Since we now have 4 teams it is unlikely there will be any Monday club nights once matches commence (w/c 25th September), but you never know, as my 2 year old is fond of reminding me.

I’ll update the events diary with all the club matches as and when I get the fixtures list.

There’s a committee meeting next Thursday (17/08), so I’ll update the site with any news, announcements or royal commands from the chairman in the few days following. Look out in particular for a statement from the selectors, and maybe something from the social committee, who knows? One tidbit I did pick up (or possibly dreamt) is that the ‘C’ team ended up with promotion from the 5th after all, because of Salt Ayre dropping out of the league, but I’ll confirm this at the committee meeting. If this is true, we’ll have teams in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th this season, unless we can’t scrape together a ‘D’ team after all, in which case we’ll be fined and have teams in the 2nd, 3rd and 5th divisions.

But that’ll never happen.

Ken Fletcher from Sunnyside BC has dropped me an email about a quiz night that they are holding.

It’s at The White Cross on March 22nd, starting at 7pm. There’s a £5 entry fee which includes food. All are welcome.

Thanks Ken.

As previously trailed on this site, England played Denmark at the Preston Guild Hall on 2nd March. Now, I’m not going to post a match report or anything, since it’s a bit late for that and it’s been well covered elsewhere. I had intended to give my views on the new point per rally system, but I haven’t had time and the moment’s passed. I may well write something about it when I’ve seen it some more at the forthcoming Commonwealth games. What I am going to do is post some pictures from off of the telly!

Some random crowd members.

Some members of TBC enjoying 15 seconds of fame, yesterday.

The closing date for entries to the league tournament is this Friday, 10th February.

BADMINTON England » The Carlton England v Denmark International
The Carlton England v Denmark InternationalOn Thursday 2nd March 2006, the Preston Guild Hall in Lancashire will be hosting The Carlton England v Denmark International match. Play will begin at 6.45pm.

The match will be played on one night only and will consist of Men’s and Women’s Singles, Men’s and Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles.

Anyone fancy this?

For all those who are coming to the Simply French meal on 4th Feb, a change in the time. It won’t be 8 p.m. any longer, but 7 p.m.

Sorry about that, I did get an email which seemed to confirm the 8 p.m. booking…

Hi James

I have passed your reservation to Robert and have reserved a table for 16 on Saturday 4 Feb at 8pm.
Thank you for pointing out the link to the menus does not work.

Thank you for your booking

Janita
pp QSF

…but then I got a call saying that they only had 7 p.m. available.

Sorry, and I hope that suits everyone. Let me know if there’s a problem.

BADMINTON England » News

Robertson and Emms blow five match points
Olympic silver medallists Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms squandered FIVE match points as they lost their Yonex All England title to Olympic gold medallists Zhang Jun and Gao Ling 12-15 17-14 15-1 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham this afternoon.

The England pair had beaten their Chinese rivals on all three occasions since the Olympics but Robertson summed it up when he said: “We threw it away. When you have five match points you ought to win. We didn’t play to the level of the last two days.

Wow, that’s eerie – I squandered 5 game points in our match last Friday!

Quick update on the QSF meal, this has been booked now for 8 p.m. on the 4th Feb, with 16 places booked.

There will be a cub night tomorrow (Monday – 23rd Jan) at the college from 8 p.m.

This is a cup week, and both the ‘B’ and ‘C’ have matches. Check the diary for details. The ‘A’ team have a bye in this round.

The entry forms for the league tournament have now been distributed, and everyone should have theirs by now. If you haven’t, please see Cynthia for a copy. Closing date is February 10th.

That will be all for now.