Things have been quiet playing-wise over the COVID lockdown but some members have been busy making some home-based pistes.  Pictured are new pistes from Gerry and Andras.

Our Xmas Party was held on Friday 13th at the Rec Reserve. We had about 25 members attend and a great time was had by all.  Some photos below.

Our annual tournament was again successful this year with 18 teams (4 others dropped out at the last minute) competing in pretty horrendous weather - strong winds and very cold. Luckily there wasn't a lot of rain and the comp finished in good time.

All results are available at MyPetanque.com

The raffle was a big success with so many excellent prizes donated by Club Members. Some photos below.

Click on them to get the full picture.

  Individual results frrom Sunday Oct 6th 2019 saw the first of our annual family days where club members (licenced and social) and their friends gathered for a day of Petanque and friendship.  It was a great success with over 40 people attending - 36 of them playing petanque.  It was Clive's idea so a big thanks to him.  Much work in organising the event went into it particularly by Gordon (who bought a fair few to the day!). Big thanks to Gordon.  Also Beryl who organised the food.  Excellent BBQ food it was too.  Everyone chipped in to get the lunch done and the clean up at the end of the day.  Winners of the Inaugural Doubles championship (using the rules of the day) were Big Dave Walker and John Sexton.  The day was a fundraising one for the club too.  Thanks to the sponsors who donated gift Vouchers to the winners and some others. Some pics below. Click on one and you can scroll through the others in a larger format. Individual results at the bottom.

The four new benches were installed recently by Club Members. They were partially funded by the Club and The Golden Plains Council.

We are lucky to have one of the only undercover pistes in Australia at our Club due to the wonderful work of Club member Clive Williams.  As a result we get to play pretty regularly over winter.  heres are some shots.

This year we are introducing an Intra-Club Annual Doubles Tournament.  This will occur on Sunday October 6th. The comp is open to Club members - licenced and social - and their friends and family.  It will be an out of the hat set of four games with the highest aggregate being the winner.  A BBQ will be put on by the Club as well.  Put the date in your diary.

Our Annual Triples Tournament will be on Saturday October 26th this year. This is open to all comers.  

Previous winners:
​
2016: Stephane Langlois, Louis Fennolar and Laurent Fossaert
2017: Brian Fitzpatrick, Glen Bovell and Dave Walker
2018: Alexis Susser, Vikash Jaunky and Christophe Moretti

The Club was successful this month in receiving another grant form the Golden Plains Shire Council to allow us to add four more bench seats to the Eastern side of our pistes area (in the shade in the pic below).  This will happen before our annual tournaments in October.

Many thanks to GPS for their continuing support.

It was a great day at Gordon and Pam Oliver's place to celebrate Bastille Day and our Bi-Annual Championships despite the extremely bad weather that prohibited the playing of petanque (except for a few diehards).

Photo gallery below in random order. Click on a pic for a bigger version.

Club Champion was Jeff Langdon with past champions Michel Morisset and Chris Przygoda coming in close second and third.  Most improved was Phil Blake.

The food was fantastic with everyone being given a particularly French dish to prepare  - too many to mention here but everyone really enjoyed the food and the conviviality. We even sang the French National Anthem with great gusto with words provided by Graeme and Sue Houghton!

Special thanks must go to Gordon and Pam and their family who put in an amazing amount of work to make the day the success it was. Also thanks to Gordon and Clive who presided over the presentation ceremonies. And to everyone who attended and supported the Club's activities.

Members of the Club attended the annual Alliance Francaise Petanque tournament at Rick and Catherine Steele's beautiful property in Ballarat in March.  We were successful bringing in first and second places amongst 14 teams!

We had three teams at Avoca Doubles this year - Jeff and Michel, Jack and Gordon and Clive and John.  In addition Chris and Rob played with other Club members.  All teams performed competitively amongst the 30 teams in the Open competition.

Jeff and Michel did well on the second day coming in fourth in the Complementaire section.  Some photos below - including some from the recent outing at Gordon's G-dome (since we forgot to take enough photos at Avoca!)

A group of 18 members and partners travelled to Blue Pyrenees Winery on Friday March 8th.  We played some petanque on the famous piste that the legendary finals of the Avoca tournaments i the 70s were played on.  They are now more a dirt road so the terrain was "challenging"!  A great day out culminated by a four or five tapas course lunch that was yummy.

We took three teams to the annual Apollo Bay tournament - Big Dave, Graeme and Jeff who won 4 out of six on Saturday and came equal fifth in the Principale on Sunday.  Jacques (Jack), Gordon and Rob won two on Saturday and performed well in the Sociale on Sunday. Michel, John and Clive won one on Saturday but ended up fourth in the Sociale on Sunday. .  A good weekend.

Many thanks to Gordon and Pam for hosting a very pleasant afternoon/evening at their place where a few exciting social games of Petanque were played and a great meal was shared.  Great to see some new faces there too.