Nice shirt Oskar

The move to Auckland has done wonders for your dress sense.

Image from Cockle Bay page.

Spammer in our midst

A person has been spamming the post "PNZ Council Meeting (Oct.)". I am not sure why this person (without a name) is so disgruntled with this particular post. I have no time to continually remove his/her unsavory nonsense, so I have invoked our Blog's "comment moderation" again.

This means you can still make comments in the usual way to any posts on our Blog, but they will go through a moderation process. This in turn means your comments will not instantly appear - they will be published later.

I have no problem with robust debate, but when people make personalised attacks on others, and on top of that do not provide their own full name - their contributions will be vaporized with one single mouse click. This is known as "comment moderation".

This is not in any way an attempt to reduce freedom of speech. As editor of this Blog I take my editorial responsibilities serious and will safeguard the integrity of our NZPC Blog. We have also received comments in the form of advertisements of unrelated and objectionable material - they get nuked as well. This makes me think that I will probably keep the automated moderation switched on indefinitely.

I look forward to your comments. Cheers, Tom.

PNZ Council Meeting (Oct.)

The Regional Representatives will be meeting early October in Wellington. It is now a good time to submit your questions, proposals, submissions, or whatever you have on your mind to them. Post or email it to Michael Rocks.

You can submit material as an individual or as a group.

I received word that the date for the PNZ Council meeting is being rescheduled from Sep.15/16, probably to the first weekend in October. I will keep you up-to-date on this. Regardless of the date, you should submit any questions, comments, concerns, proposals, suggestions, feedback or anything else you might want to talk about. -Tom.

Problems with the forthcoming Petanque Championships

"At a meeting at Pattaya City Hall, discussions took place to discuss problems relating to the 43rd Petanque World Championships 2007 which are due to take place at the Pattaya Indoor Stadium in Jomtien between 18th and 23rd September. Khun Niran, the Mayor of Pattaya chaired the meeting and was told that the park which needs to be constructed in the grounds of the Indoor Stadium to accommodate the games of Petanque has not yet been constructed with only three weeks to go until the Championships begin. The Mayor, who is far from happy that the Petanque Park has not been constructed, told officials from the Technical Services Department to begin construction right away...."

Petanque in Lao

These shots were brought in by John Underhill - a customer of Chris Priestley. Chris emailed them on to me (not bad for a self-confessed computer illiterate). They show Petanque in Laos (or is it Lao). Well, what can I say - just look at that scorer! (last image).






The scorer is a bit difficult to see. If you click on the image you'll get a slightly larger version. Apparently John said that at any one time there could be 20 to 30 people at this place.

PS. Chris Priestley will by playing music in Petone (Wellington) on October 12.

Provision of a Reserve for the NZ Team

"....Part of the team's preparation for this year's World Petanque Championships has been to assess their risks during the tournament and establish an appropriate mitigation strategy.

If a player is ill or becomes incapacitated precluding that player from taking part in a scheduled game, a "reserve" will be called on to enable the team to continue in the tournament.

PNZ has been included in the formulation of this strategy and consulted with the FIPJP. In the event of such an occurrence PNZ has delegated authority to the team manager and team captain to invoke the strategy as necessary. They will keep PNZ informed of all developments by the fastest possible means....."

See full text by following the link at the end of this post.

New Zealand Petanque on Google map

We now have all clubs in New Zealand on one Google map. This is especially good news for players visiting our beautiful country. Follow the link at the end of this post, and give the map time to render on your screen (the speed depends on your system, etc.

Once the map has fully loaded check your club. If the location on the map is not correct let me know. If your club has been left out, let me know. Experiment with the map to see all its features (for instance, zoom in on your club). Have created a permanent link on this Blog to the map. If you are a webmaster please feel free to make a link to this independent map on your own website (it will help international visitors).

I have also made Auckland and Wellington only maps. The links are under "WPA Regional Links" and "APA Regional Links".

Replies to CEO Newsletter

The CEO Newsletter has received a lot of comment, and because they are rather long comments I have set up a permanent page for these. Follow the link at the end of this post.

Dispute resolution is good news

I am happy to see that one of the roles Bryan Wells has been allocated is the role of "Dispute resolution". This kind of service was also my suggestion after I became aware of the unfortunate "Dawn Gardner Incident". This was a long running dispute, which was finally settled by the NZ legal system after 15 months of wrangling. At some point during these 15 months PNZ was approached to mediate, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, the PNZ mediation did not eventuate. This new initiative by PNZ is fantastic news.

As this idea was first recorded on our Wiki (on this page), I like to think that our Wiki has played a part in this. Many items from this Wiki based Organisation SWOT Analysis page have also been taken on board by PNZ. I hope that other ideas, like a DVD library and a CEO newsletter are next. Great news all-around and nice our Wiki is part of it.

To help out is a good thing

What is so great about our friendly and small Petanque community is the fact that many fantastic people give freely of their time for the betterment of our sport. Webmasters, coaches, travel agents, teachers, accountants and many others give their time to help out. It shows that you can make a difference. Not every suggestion or project comes to fruition of course.

Oceania 2006 photos

Don't forget to have a look at the newly added photos and results of this by all accounts outstanding event. To think that all we needed was a NZ team of three players, in order to take part and defend our title. Lets not dwell on this here, and celebrate with the winners and participants. Well done to the organising and host country Australia!.

WPA selection process

The WPA has set up some Wiki pages about the proposed Regional Competitions Player Selection process. Please make sure you get involved with this.

Petanque SWOT Analysis

Organisation SWOT Analysis. New Zealand Petanque strategies to utilise strengths and leverage opportunities to deal with threats and weaknesses. Lets use our Wiki and work together on our future. Please tell us what you think, by adding to these pages.

Petanque terrain roughed-up?

"....Anybody can roll a boule on a smooth, flat terrain but it’s not so easy when the terrain has slopes and dips, stony areas, etc. The beginner invariable complains about a “bad bounce” whereas the expert will study the terrain, chose the best shot – rolling, half-lob or high-lob – and the correct landing spot, so as to minimise the risk of a “bad bounce”.

"....Beginners usually think that pointing is easy, shooting is difficult. Experienced players often say the opposite. Why? Because the shooter usually only needs to learn and play one shot, au fer, a direct boule to boule hit. Shooters are untroubled by an irregularities of the terrain."

We (Masterton Petanque Club) would like to receive some feedback from you. We are considering adding stones initially to 1/4 or 1/2 of our terrain. The question on which we want your opinion is this: If you entered a tournament in Masterton how would you feel about not knowing whether you played games on the super smooth part, or the stony part of our MPC terrain? Before you provide your feedback, make sure you read the full article by following the link below. Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think.

- Tom.

News from Grenoble

If you have come for news from Grenoble, you will find it on the PNZ website

It appears that a group of people in NZ are receiving SMS progress reports from Grenoble. The two webmasters (Pete from the Hawkes Bay, and yours truly from Masterton) who last year made a real effort in bringing you news items (and photos) as they came to hand, are evidently not part of this SMS group. If we don't get it, we can't bring it. -Tom.

PS. I am sure that most of us understand that it would make no sense for webmasters to individually hunt for New Zealand material from Grenoble - we have lives too.

Update 25/09: Please note that the comments to this post are now out of sequence. For an explenation see "Note from the editor".

- Tom.

Low Petanque turnout

PNZ received 20 replies to their request for selection process feedback from the NZ Petanque membership (some are published here). Considering we have 60 players on the national selection list and at least 1200 affiliated members this is a disappointing result. It can't be easy for PNZ to formulate policies and get it right, if people are not showing any interest. It's no good moaning if we are not prepared to provide input. Twenty replies with 6 of these from players not on the selection list. This leaves only 14 replies from the 60 players that had put their name forward for selection. PNZ no doubt will be looking for some kind of mandate to make changes, but with only 20 replies this is going to be difficult.

"There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference"

 Juan Montalvo.