Here they are, the teams for the initial matches which start next week. These are subject to change throughout the season. Any problems, see a selector, don’t write to me…

Cynthia has been circulating a fixtures list, but if you haven’t got one yet or have misplaced it (Paul), then look at the league handbook. I haven’t done so yet, but I will be adding all of the fixtures to the club diary soon, too…

‘A’ Team

  • James
  • Stephen
  • Paul
  • Anne
  • Julie
  • Janette (c)

‘B’ Team

  • Dave S
  • John
  • Graham (c)
  • Shauna
  • Tracy
  • Tanya

‘C’ Team

  • Dave C
  • Kevin
  • Gordon
  • Lorna (c)
  • Veronica
  • Hazel

‘D’ Team

  • David R
  • Sandy
  • Stewart
  • Cynthia
  • Diane (c)
  • Anita

Details of the Xmas meal available in this page (see the sidebar ===>;) and re-produced below for convenience.


The Xmas meal has been booked for Thursday December 3rd at The Gatehouse.

The booking is for 20 and the cost for the 2 courses is 17.50. There is a large selection of homemade desserts available and they will be charged as taken. Cost doesn’t include any drinks!

If you want to come, please let James know asap, as places are limited. Partners are welcome. You’ll need to leave a deposit of £5 per head to secure your places.

Christmas Evening Menu

Starters

  • Winter Vegetable Broth
  • Confit Duck Leg
    on shredded savoy cabbage with a pink peppercorn sauce
  • Ham Hock, Leek & Cranberry Terrine
    served with a dressed rocket salad & spicy tomato compote
  • Roast Beetroot, Blue Cheese & Pecan Salad with an orange and honey dressing
  • Home Cured Salmon cured with lemon and dill and served
    with horseradish crème fraiche

Mains

  • Pan Fried Sea Bass
    broccoli mousse, red pepper dressing and basil oil
  • Roast Local Turkey
    with all the trimmings
  • Roast Rump Of Lamb
    With sautéed mushrooms, spinach and shallot gravy
  • Venison Rossini
    Venison steak served pink on a garlic crouton and with chicken liver pate
    with a rich red wine sauce
  • Stuffed Chicken Breast stuffed with
    Sausage & chestnuts and served on a sweet potato rosti
  • Sweet Potato, Leek & Ginger Crumble
  • Mushroom & Chestnut Pithivier Puff pastry filled with mushrooms, chestnuts and ricotta with asparagus sauce

The golf event has been organised and will take place at Morecambe Golf Club on 27th September from 2pm.

Entry will cost £10 and, apparently, there’ll be prizes. Although probably not for me.

For more information see Dave S.

As promised, we’re keeping the current thinking of the selectors open and accessible. You can see it on the tame club notice board (incorporating white board feature), and you can see it here. Any problems, see a selector, don’t write to me…

‘A’ Team

  • James
  • Stephen
  • Paul
  • Anne
  • Julie
  • Shauna

‘C’ Team

  • Dave C
  • Kevin
  • Gordon
  • Tracy
  • Veronica
  • Hazel

‘B’ Team

  • Dave S
  • John
  • Graham
  • Janette
  • Maureen
  • Tanya

‘D’ Team

  • David R
  • Sandy
  • Stewart
  • Cynthia
  • Diane
  • Lorna

I took part in this survey. I got a bit carried away with some of the free-text answers, well, a couple of them anyway. Here’s what I put. Note that these are my personal opinions and not the opinions of Torrisholme Badminton Club, and, on reflection my comments about the organisation leeching from local clubs is a bit harsh, since I do want to see national and international players being supported and that has to be funded somehow, but I just wish it wasn’t all one-way traffic.


For the ‘Why do you say that?” question in follow up to my answer of ‘very poor’ to “Thinking generally about the current benefits of being a BADMINTON England member – how would you rate them? ” question:

A national organisation with literally NO relevance to local players. Despite lip service in the magazine, the organisation leeches from local clubs and gives nothing in return, bar forcing undesired changes on locals just because they suit national and international players or TV producers (e.g. rally points).


When I chose ‘very poor’ for “Thinking generally about the Badminton Magazine – how would you rate it?”, they asked me why I said that. I replied:

No content worth reading for practically anybody. Very limited coaching advice or information about playing badminton at the level of what must be the vast majority of the readership, local league players. Even for higher standard players there can’t be anything worth reading beyond the results and national rankings.

Seriously, who wants to read endless puff pieces about what some national player does on their typical day?

Where are the reviews of equipment? Where are the discussions about tactics that league players and up-and-coming juniors can use at club night? How about some drills that can be put into use by people at several removes from the elite? Or advice on how to organise a club night around 2 courts with 20 people wanting to variously practice, play games and talk about East-enders, before sodding off down the pub? These people don’t need or want advanced aerobic and anaerobic conditioning regimes, they need some basic advice about where to stand to receive serve, how to practice backhands and what to do when the opposition are making bad line calls. OK, lots of people do want more advanced stuff, so leave it in (though I bet if they’re serious they’re getting it elsewhere anyway), but where’s the stuff for the little people?

It really isn’t clear who the audience of this magazine really is.

Pow! All of a sudden, the new season is upon us. Don’t forget that selection starts from this Sunday, 6th September, at Salt Ayre from 2.30 for 2 hours, then we’re right back at the College next day from 7 til 10. Repeat that pattern the following week and then we’re back to matches!

Have you washed your shorts?

The new season is just around the corner and the minutes from the AGM are going out. Along with the minutes comes a note from the revered chairman of the club. I reproduce it for you here in full.


Greetings fellow Badminton player! I trust you are having a lovely summer, have been training hard (*cough*) and are looking forward to the new, exciting season which is just around the corner.

I wanted to take this opportunity to add a few words as an addendum to the minutes from the AGM, just to add a little commentary and clarification on some of the points discussed and to update you on some other areas which may be of interest.

Shuttles

As discussed at the AGM, if you have any club shuttles left over from the end of the season then please ensure you return them for use this year. We’ll need shuttles from the first selection day on the 6th September and ideally we want to start by using up old stock first, since they deteriorate in storage. Further, from the financial perspective, even a few tubes carried over is a significant cost saving to the club (i.e. you and me).

If you have any and can’t make it on the 6th, please try and get them to either me or Cynthia asap (before you forget).
Prices for 2009/2010: I have just received the new prices from Inflight and there is a significant increase in price over last season. Last year we bought at an average price of £12.52/doz; Cost per dozen for this season is £13.95! Based on last year’s usage, this will increase our shuttle spend by about £75 over the season!

Selection

The minutes mention that there will be a preliminary list of the team selections published before selection nights. To clarify, the intention of this is to speed up the process and give everybody visibility of their current position earlier on and allow more time for objections & corrections to be made whilst there is still time to prove and test them through club play. In the past, the first real view of the teams was immediately before matches start; the view at the AGM was that this is too late and can lead to disquiet.
So, the selectors have been asked to pick 4 teams before we even start. The teams will be displayed prominently from the very start of the selection process. The initial list will of course be based mainly on experience from last year and whoever they’re friendly with. Please be supportive of the selectors and this experiment; if you think your name is in the wrong place at the start of the first selection session on Sunday 6th then don’t take it personally, do something about it; you have a potential 10 selection hours to play yourself into or out of the position you deserve!

Communication

E-Mail

As you will have seen from the AGM minutes the league will only be producing the handbook in electronic format from this year (available now from the league website, and also linked from ours under ‘Badminton Links’). It’s not hard to understand why; communication is faster, more efficient and cheaper electronically.
There are no intentions for us to switch to purely electronic means for any of our key communications at the moment, but I would like us to move toward being able to fulfil at least some of our communications through the web and email. To make it easier for us to collect and manage email addresses, I’ve set up some email lists – these cover website updates, social news and formal announcements, allowing you some control over which messages you’re interested in. Sign-up from the web site at: 

Web Site

The web site is currently undergoing a bit of an overhaul. It looks a bit different, but everything else is still the same. Don’t forget that the website also has links to the club calendar which will be updated soon with all of the club nights and matches.

Twitter

Just to give the other clubs a laugh, you can now follow us on Twitter. I’ve integrated some Twitter functionality into the website and I’ll probably try and tweet news and results from club nights and matches, until I get bored with it. If you don’t know what I’m on about, don’t worry about it. Otherwise, you can follow us at https://twitter.com/torrisholmebc

Yeah, you laughed when we set up the web site – you’re not laughing now!

Social

The Christmas meal will be at the Gatehouse on Thursday 3rd December. We have been to the Borough for the past 2 years and it’s time for a change. The Thursday night slot, whilst not ideal for people working on Fridays(!) works well in that it doesn’t impinge on people’s weekends and is less likely to clash with other dos at this time of the year. The food at the Gatehouse at the moment is fabulous.
In the meantime, there will be a bowling night organised at Morecambe Mega-bowl, and Dave will organise the golf day at Heysham Golf Club to happen sometime in August or September.
Keep an eye on the website for updates and sign-up for the social mailing list for all the social news.

Committee Meetings

As I stated in my opening remarks at the AGM, there were NO committee meetings held last season between AGMs. This was simply because there were no pressing issues during the season (in stark contrast to the 2007/2008 season!). The only problem with this was that we missed the opportunity for the club to make proposals for our own and the league AGMs.

To avoid this situation, I intend for the following meetings to be held by the committee come what may. Further meetings will be arranged on an ad hoc basis according to need:

W/C 25th Jan 2010 General Committee Meeting (to include team captains)

W/C 19th April 2010 To discuss club proposals to the League. Elected officers only.
May/Early-June. Pre-AGM meet. Elected officers only. Timing dependent on provision of information from the League.

Please supply your club and league proposals by the end of the season.

Here’s to a great 2009/2010 season,

James Illingworth
Chairman

Just a quick post – pictures from the xmas meal are available to view here and there’s a teaser below…

Some festivities.

Matches start again next week believe it or not! I’ve updated the club diary at Google Calender with dates until the end of the season. The only ones which may not be on are cup matches and I’ll add those when I find them out myself. Anyone making use of that calendar, by the way?

Whilst you’re on the internet, why not check the league standings at the league website?