What a great Transtasman from Jean Claude

"Dear All,
What a great Trans Tasman
New Zealand retained both the Open and Senior trophies at the weekend in Melbourne.
But: We had a lot of Fun and every game was a challenging battle against the best players from New Zealand......"
Read more>>>

Petanque players doing it for themselves

It is great to see how NZ petanque players have taken to the Web. Two additions are Twitter and more recently a new space for petanque players was created by Ruby Vakauta at Facebook PATONKAZ. PATONKAZ seems to have a good future with already over 40 members and a good number are active participants. Petanque players doing it for themselves has to be a good thing. I encourage everyone to take part in this by joining up.

The greatest little Petanque Club in the world

"MASTERTON PETANQUE CLUB: Masterton Petanque Club have been in existence since the early 1990s and have provided many of the country's top players. Four national titles have been won and no fewer than eight members have represented New Zealand. Masterton has the highest representation of any club - five - in the Kiwi line-up to take on Australia in a transtasman battle this month."
Taken from this page.

MID-WINTER DOUBLES TOURNAMENT

It's on again!
MASTERTON PETANQUE CLUB
MID-WINTER DOUBLES TOURNAMENT
Saturday 4th June and Sunday 5th June
New Zealand’s Unique Undercover Petanque Tournament
Held at the WAIRARAPA A & P SOCIETY SHOWGROUNDS
(Chester Road, Carterton)
ENTRIES CLOSE:30th May
START TIME:Games commence at 9.00am.
ENTRY FEE:$50.00 per team
CASH, WINE and TROPHIES to be won!
Timed Games: 1 hour plus 2 ends.
Download your entry form here.

Your help/feedback

Could I please ask a question to the readers of the blog - I desperately want to do something to help improve tournament participation at our 2 day tournaments, I have serious concerns over participation numbers and the future of our tournaments. I am seeking feedback as to why people are not participating? Ideas on how we could stimulate growth of these tournaments? What is keeping people away? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated … thank you Sarah-Jane

Membership & Affiliation Fees - a different approach

It really pays to look at how other counties deal with membership / affiliation fees. People in New Zealand may well have done this but have not shared information. Thanks Rita for shining a different light on this fee issue and making it available to all.
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A Letter From Rita

Rita de Beer from the Cockle Bay Petanque Club has written down some of her thoughts on this page. It makes for rather sad reading and I sincerely hope PNZ will allow the Cockle Bay remit, and at the same time give the club some space and time to decide what they want to do with regards to staying affiliated to PNZ. Please do not give these good people from the Cockle Bay Petanque Club deadlines and ultimatums.

This is what I found on one of their pages: "Cockle Bay Petanque Club has now been told that if their fees aren't paid before AGM, their remit will be withdrawn"

This is the remit: "That the Cockle Bay Petanque Club requests Petanque New Zealand to levy a lower affiliation fee of $5.00 per person for the over 60s non National Tournament players"

PNZ Club Championships

I see, only just posted on the PNZ website, where this years organiser, of the PNZ Club Championships, to be held in Rotorua, next month. Now requires, that "all" members of a team, must belong to the same club. Begs the Question: regardless of where one lives, is "multi memberships" of clubs allowable? If Not, and in recognising the fact, that the vast majority of club members are purely social players. That along with the huge drop off in numbers of competitive players -that have resulted in, the normally well patronised competitions being cancelled. And the $60 per player entry fee! It will be interesting to see how many "purest" teams take part?
Sincerely Dave Bosley.

Petanque NZ 2011 AGM Agenda

"Please find attached the agenda for the 2011 Annual General Meeting of Petanque New Zealand.

I also attach the Minutes of the 2010 AGM (previously circulated April
2010).

I would appreciate it if you could let me know
(a) if you intend to have a Club representative at the AGM - if you have a member who is competing at the Triples they could fulfil this role; or

(b) if you will be authorising another club representative to vote on your behalf. In this case, the written authority to do so must be lodged with the Secretary (by post or email) before the start of the meeting.

Also, a reminder that if your Club wishes to vote at the AGM, its affiliation fees must be paid (they are due and payable by 31st March 2011).


Regards
Barbara Whittington

Secretary
Petanque New Zealand"

Fourth Player in the Nat. Triples

I received four emails (one last night and three this morning) and all are the same forwarded corespondents about a "fourth player". No intro text was provided by the four senders apart from FYI. The corespondents is basically about the fourth player in the Nat triples. I am going to remove all names from the emails and will put them later today on our Wiki.

Please remember if you are commenting on this post or any other post on this Blog, sign off with your name.

Go to Emails.

Cockle Bay Petanque Clubs decision to withhold payment

"To inform all interested what is behind the Cockle Bay Petanque Clubs decision to withhold payment of P.N.Z. Affiliation fees."
Go to this page

Cockle Bay embarks on direct action against PNZ

During their AGM last Sunday the members of the Cockle Bay petanque club have decided to withhold all payments to PNZ until PNZ comes around and answers some of their questions. This is as far as I know the first case in New Zealand of direct action against PNZ by an affiliated petanque club. Will we see a domino effect? It remains to be seen if this will change the way PNZ communicates with its members.

On a more positive note, the Cockle Bay Petanque Club has also voted to donate $500.00 to the Christchurch quake fund. Fantastic!!

Christchurch

Power has just returned. No water yet. We are ok for water. House is good. We have not slept during night. Unbelievable aftershocks every twenty minutes.

Extremely frightening on my work 6th floor. Was thrown about. Hurt my knee - getting better now. When I got up from the floor all I could see through our windows was rapidly rising large and dense dust clouds in all directions - so many building have completely collapsed. The most frightening part apart from the violent shaking was the loud angry noises the building made - truly powerful and frightening very loud noises. I think I've been very lucky.

Lorraine at work - only doing critical patients.

Major tournament failed to attract the numbers

Subject: Rotorua Doubles tournament 5/6 March 2011
"I regret to inform you that this year’s tournament which you have entered has failed to attract the number of entries needed to make the tournament successful.

It is appreciated that there is still a week before the close off date but to avoid people making arrangements we felt it was necessary to cancel the tournament now.

To date we have received 8 entries after two teams pulled out. We guess it is a sign of the times but hope that Club teams will come to Rotorua for the National Club Championships in April.

Please advise your playing partner.

A full refund will be posted out in the next few days.

Thank you for your support

Trevor
Secretary
Petanque Rotorua"

Great day in Christchurch

Nice time at the Christchurch club played a triples round-robin within 45 minutes plus one end. The one end after 45 minutes reduces the possibility of teams deliberately using delaying tactics towards the end of the 45 minutes when they are ahead - I like it! Lorraine and I had the good fortune to be teamed up with Theo Westerbeek a visiting Dutch player with 30 years international competitive play under his belt. What struck me most about Theo is that not only was he a hell of a nice guy, he was also a master petanque tactician. Tactical understanding and cunning displayed by Theo can only be acquired through many year of competition experience. The value of playing at a high tactical level is often underestimated I feel. Lorraine and I learned a lot from today. And yes, we also took some wine as winnings home.

Mystery Petanque Blog Discovered

I was surprised to see this line on the WPA website: "A new Pétanque blog, Petanquestuff has come to our attention. The owner has invited comment on the first posting regarding the Dwindling Entries at tournaments." The owner? Who is the owner of this Blog? Does the WPA webmaster know who the person behind this Blog is? How was this mystery Blog discovered on the WWW? The Blog was born with a first post on the 8th of February and mentioned by the WPA on the 9th of February. Why does this unknown and anonymous Blog deserve a mention on the WPA website?

Did the WPA web-master assume this was a NZ based Blog? Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that if you are running a publication (print or digital) you should provide contact details, name and in the case of the Web, a location (country).

Comments on the Petanquestuff Blog are moderated by the unknown owner/editor (I found this out when I submitted a comment asking who the editor of the Blog is).