January 1998

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year holiday. I was down in Brighton for the festive season and had an enjoyable relaxing time - resting up for next year's competition season. My dogs like it down there; they have a run on the downs in the mornings and then they have a romp on the beach in the afternoons. An early cold winters morning at the top of Devil’s Dyke can be quite spectacular. In one position you can stand looking towards the Sun rising over Brighton with the Downs to the left still covered in darkness.

The Beer and Skittles evening was very successful; we were divided into four teams as listed below:

Our normal Games Mistress Angie Hadley, was unfortunately the worse for drink, due to a lunch time leaving do at work, so the scoring had to be shared. The final scores for the evening are listed below:

As can be seen from the above table the “All Stars” was clearly the outstanding team of the evening. It was a nice change for myself, since Tony and I were on the same side. Even though our rivalry did show through at times, especially if I had surprisingly missed all the pins, Tony would then be all for me being transferred to the “Poseurs” team - the cheek of it! Near the end of the evening the “Juniors” were beginning to give the “All Stars” a run for their money, but it was too little too late. There were also splashes of brilliance during the evening, when hot shot Shirley knocked down seven pins and of course Paul Burry managed nine. Fortunately individual stars don’t make a team. Thank you Joe for organising a very enjoyable evening.

The following week we had a very quiet first Thursday. We discussed ideas for the future including the production of a regular Centre Newsletter; the possibility of another Car Badge being fabricated and the creation of Centre regalia. We decided if there was any support for these ideas we would check their feasibility.

During December I attended the Ryobi Championship dinner for the annual Morgan competition awards. Liz Burry won the ladies' award (congratulations Liz, I’m very pleased for you) and I won a bottle of wine for running out of petrol at one of the competition events. I don’t know how far a CVH 4/4 will run on red wine, but if I have to, I shall try it! Paul Burry won the overall championship closely followed by George Bleasdale. George had won the Northern championship and very nearly made it a double. On a personal note, I know that George will be moving on to bigger and better things in the competition scene next year. Over the years I have had the pleasure of getting to know George and his wife Pam quite well at the various competition events (Pam was always borrowing my deck chair in the paddock). I shall miss you both very much.

We had a good session at the Queen’s Oak as it was the last noggin of the year and was close to Christmas.

Events for early in the new year include the possibility of a treasure hunt: starting at the Queen’s and ending somewhere for tea, details will hopefully be available soon.

Roger Buff

Dates and Things:

Club Meetings: 1st Thursday of every month, from 20:00 onwards.

Bird In Hand, Knowl Hill.

Sunday Lunchtime Venue Dates:

Queen’s Oak, Finchampstead, near Finchampstead Church, 12:00 onwards.

February 15th, March 15th, April 19th.