Half Crown Petanque Club

Highlights of AGM held on 22nd January 2011

The new committee for 2011 is:
- Chairman - John Emberton
- Secretary - Richard Powell
- Treasurer - Vacant
- Club Captain - Jerome Rousseau
- Coach - Dave Hancox
- Public Relations Officer - Caroline Powell
- Ex-officio Members - Bill Bentley, Geraldine Gardiner.
Other appointments were:
- Auditor - Garth Fletcher
- Webmaster - John Emberton

Club Member of the year
Ian Brittain was awarded the accolade of Club Member of the Year in recognition of his support (and success) in the Saturday Club and all of the other club and Regional Leagues and Competitions throughout the year.

Club Champion
Jamie Lewis was announced as Club Champion in recognition of his selection for England in the World Championships plus his significant contribution to our success in the Euro Cup competition.

Supporter of the year
Jim Patrick was awarded a new club Polo Shirt in recognition of his support to all of the matches in the 2010 Euro Cup Qualifying competition.

Chairman's Report for 2010
2010 has been another great year from both playing and social perspectives.

Sadly, for the fourth year running one of our valued members passed away. Anne Emberton was a founder member of the club and was Treasurer throughout the club's existence. She was a very good Pétanque player, representing the West Midlands Region on many occasions. Many thanks to Mary Sturgess for picking up the Treasurer's role for the rest of the year.

Positive highlights of 2010 have been:

- A strong membership - we now have 39 members: 30 Registered Adult EPA Members; 1 Junior (Jacob Tanner); 2 Life Members; and 6 other paid-up members.
- Club facilities - We are making good use of our Pavilion, and are gradually reaching the point where all the junk will be gone and we turn it into a first rate facility. Thanks to Dave Hancox for providing excellent lighting, and to Bill Bentley who has kept the pistes weed free and the flags flying.
- Good communications - We have an informative web site that has generated a number of enquiries and an ongoing programme of Newsletters. Rich Powell has featured in two radio interviews, one for Radio 4 and the other for Vic Minett's show on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire.
- The success of our Saturday Melees, which as well as attracting some good competition with an average of 20 players, earned us £425 (as compared to £279 in 2009)
- 6 Piste Parties for various associations with over 100 participants throughout the year and raised £301 - thanks to Rich, Dave, Bill and Ian for helping me to run these important events. The pity is we have not recruited any new players through these events.
- Some good social events:
o The second annual Brian Price Memorial Melee took place on 3rd April, with 40 players, including 12 members of the Price family.
o We had a great turnout of 21 pairs for the Annual Beaujolais Nouveau Challenge on 18th November, representing five clubs - Half Crown, Whitnash Windmill, Coventry, Warwick, West Haddon and Worcester. The weather was very pleasant, the Beaujolais Nouveau was excellent and the competition went down to the wire with the final game of the competition, fought between Coventry and Whitnash, who were the overall winners. The Half Crown could only manage third place, the best Half Crown Pair being Bill Bentley and Mary Sturgess who were unbeaten with a +17 points difference, which put them 5th overall.
o The Russelsheim Twinning involved just three visitors from Germany for our Twinning weekend on 20th August, but everyone enjoyed it and our German guests had a great time. We have been invited to Russelsheim next year and intend to muster more than three travellers.
o 12 novices from Lime Tree Village, Rugby, visited The Crown on 20th October and played a three round pairs competition against the Half Crown. The Half Crown won 14 of the 18 games, but there was some impressive boules from our visitors. We have been invited to a return match at Lime Tree Village in the spring.
- Strong representation for The Half Crown on the West Midlands Executive Committee - Congratulations to the Half Crown members who were elected to The West Midlands Pétanque Association's Regional Executive Committee at the AGM on Sunday 28th November: Jerome Rousseau - Deputy President; John Emberton - Treasurer; Dave Hancox - Regional Umpire; Janet Kimpton - Regional Public Relations Officer.

Disappointments for 2010 have been:
- The Half Crown Club Day on Saturday 11th September was disappointing with just 5 singles entries and six pairs. Rich Powell beat Ian Brittain in the singles final and Ian then teamed up with Rich Powell in the pairs, and after an exciting Round Robin competition, Rich and Ian beat Dave Hancox and Caroline Powell in the pairs final, making it four years in a row that Rich Powell has been the pairs champion with various partners. Well done Rich.
- Half Crown Tuesday Club - Our training night never got of the ground in 2010.
- Similarly the Saturday Club has been disappointing with an average of just 6-8 members turning out regularly from a group of 11 stalwarts, and many weeks when there were just two or three. On the positive side, we have raised £185 in match fees, and the contest for the Winter and Summer League titles was keen.
The Winter League concluded on Saturday 27th March with Ian Brittain the new champion with 41 points. Bill Bentley, last year's champion, was second with 38 points and Mary Sturgess was joint third with John Emberton on 26 points. Ian also won the Summer League with 58 points, well ahead of second placed John Walker, on 35 points, and Rosaleen Preston on 31 points. Bob Burt was fourth 29 points.
- The Half Crown Open pairs on 24th October attracted just eight teams so we played a round robin competition with hot favourites Jerome Rousseau and Philippe Bonnet taking the first prize, following a hiccup when Rosaleen Preston and Natalie Turner beat them 13- 5, thanks to some excellent pointing by Rosaleen.

On the serious playing side, The Half Crown Pétanque Club has again dominated Pétanque in the West Midlands throughout 2010 winning the Inter-Club Challenge for the third year running, regaining control of The Summer League, heading the leader board of the new President's Cup and providing teams to represent the Region at the EPA Champion of Champions competition.
- Six clubs contested the 2010 West Midlands Inter-Club Competition at Stockton on 2nd May: Half Crown (Stockton), Whitnash Windmill PC, Coventry PC, Warwick PC, Solihull PC and The Swan PC (from Letton in Herefordshire). Each team comprised three pairs who competed in a five round 'round robin'.
The competition went right down to the wire with the very last game, in which Dave Hancox and Garth Fletcher beat Solihull's Josette Wick and John Kemp to give the Half Crown 12 wins with a +82 points advantage, narrowly pipping Whitnash who had already completed their programme and achieved 12 wins with +33. The Half Crown therefore retained the Inter Club Cup, which they have now won for three successive years. The Swan finished third with 7 wins, Coventry and Warwick had five wins each and Solihull had four wins.
- After 14 gruelling rounds of competition, the West Midlands Summer League reached its climax on 1st September when a 4-0 victory over Coventry Blue gave The Half Crown Knights the 2010 title with 37 wins, just ahead of Coventry Blue who had 31 wins. Warwick Royals were third with 28 wins and Whitnash Oats fourth with 25 wins. Solihull Swans and Warwick Bears are relegated to Division 2.
- The final round of the 2010 West Midlands Petanque Association's President's Cup was played at Letton on 10th October and the overall winners were a trio from Stockton - Dave Hancox, David Kimpton and Janet Kimpton who won 15 games, closely followed by Garth Fletcher with 13 wins. This new competition proved to be very popular, and was supported by no less than 72 different players over the 7 rounds. The trophy was donated by Jens Bryan, the West Midland's President.
- Janet and David Kimpton were runners up in the West Midlands Closed Pairs and represented the Region at The Champion of Champions Pairs competition in October.
- The Half Crown also dominated the West Midlands Closed Triples competition, playing in excellent weather conditions on 25th April at Stockton. Two Half Crown teams contested the final - Rich Powell, Martin Baker and Philippe Bonnet won a tight contest against Dave Hancox, David Kimpton and Garth Fletcher. These two teams, plus Jerome Rousseau and Janet Kimpton, the fourth members of the two respective squads, represented the Region in the Champion of Champions Triples competition at York in October.
- The West Midlands annual shooting competition was also held on this day and was also dominated by the Half Crown, with the top three being Half Crown members: Jerome Rousseau 39pts; Martin Baker 27pts; Ian Brittain 22pts. Philippe Bonnet was fifth with 20pts.

We provided 11 players to represent West Midlands in their successful 2010 campaign at Brean Sands, where the squad ended up in a best ever 5th place (from 8) in Division 1.
- Jerome Rousseau, Herve Bavazzano, David Kimpton (with Brian Stote from Coventry) as WM1;
Sofiane Lachani, Janet Kimpton and Robert Silvy as WM2;
Phillipe Bonnet, Rich Powell, Martin Baker as WM3;
Ian Brittain, playing with David Mason, Paul Stoodley and Edna Lewin as WM6.
- Also, Wendy Brittain, Natalie Turner were selected for the Challenge Trophy, and ended up in 10th place (from 13).

However, our best achievement of the year was our success in progressing into Europe as the EPA Club Champions. With an influx of new players handpicked by Jerome, we made it to the finals day for the first time and 19 Half Crown Club members travelled to Burnham in Buckinghamshire on Sunday 18th April to contest the semi final and final of the English Club Championship.
The semi-final, played in the morning, was against Tovil PC and we won the match convincingly 5-0 to move into the final. In the afternoon we played Meadows PC in the final and won the match and the championship 4-1.
We then went into Europe for a three way cup tie between Half Crown, Hvidovre PC (Denmark) and PSC Jarvenpaa (Finland) which went right to the wire, with a single poor end in the final game of the competition, when the score was 9-10, allowing the Fins to snatch the game and the whole contest from out of our grasp.
The star players of the weekend were Sofiane Lachani and Marcus Hickman who won 3 of their 4 games with a points advantage of +6. All the other players managed just one win from their four games, and the whole match was so evenly poised that just one more win would have put us in first place.