Half Crown Petanque Club

Highlights of AGM held on 23rd January 2010

The new committee for 2010 is:
- Chairman - John Emberton
- Secretary - Richard Powell
- Treasurer - Mary Sturgess
- Club Captain - Jerome Rousseau
- Coach - Dave Hancox
- Public Relations Officer - Caroline Powell
- Ex-officio Members - Bill Bentley, Geraldine Gardiner.

Club Member of the year
Dave Hancox was awarded Club Member of the Year for 2009 for his energy and enthusiasm in supporting all aspects of the club's activities, particularly in playing a key role in building our clubhouse and patio facilities, as well as the helping with the terrain, floodlights and flags and providing coaching to our new members.
Club Champion

Philippe Bonnet was awarded Club Champion accolade for 2009.
Philippe has had a great season, the highlight being playing in the winning England Home Nations Team on 15/16th August with David Mason from Whitnash and Brian Stote from Coventry, who were England's second best performing triple with 8 wins from 12 games. Playing with various partners, he is currently holder of three West Midlands PA titles - Open Triples Champion, Closed Triples Champion and Closed Pairs Champion. He also won the West Midlands Winter Pairs with Brian Stote and is, together with Rich Powell, The Half Crown Closed Pairs Champion. He richly deserves to be awarded the 2009 Club Champion's Trophy.

Chairman's Report for 2009
2009 has been a great year from both playing and social perspectives.
Sadly, for the third year running one of our valued members passed away. Robin Barnes joined the Half Crown in 1997, and was a regular participant in our Summer League teams and our Twinnings with Evreux and Braine. He will be remembered fondly for his singing at our party nights - particularly his rendition of 'The Teddy Bear's Picnic'. His performances as interpreter during the presentation ceremonies during our French Twinnings will also hold fond memories for those of us that were there. He will be sadly missed.

Positive highlights of 2009 have been:
A strong membership - we now boast 43 members including 33 registered with the EPA through the Half Crown, including six recent joiners from other Regions who will be underpinning our aspirations in the European Cup for Clubs Competition. since we now have six of the top 15 players in the country, as defined by the 2009 Premier League, as members of our club.
Half Crown Club Facilities

Many thanks to Dave Hancox and John Paxton (one of The Crown Inn regulars) who between them have transformed the shed behind the Crown Barn into a 'first rate pavilion' with a paved patio and our own furniture. Our facilities are now almost second to none in the Pétanque community thanks to their hard work.

A good web site (thanks to Mike Pegg - no longer a club member, but happy to continue as webmaster) and an ongoing communication programme of regular Newsletters.

The success of our Saturday Melees, which as well as attracting some good competition, earned us £279
8 Piste Parties for various associations including Rotarians, 41 Clubs, with over 120 participants throughout the year and raised £263 - thanks to Rich, Dave, Bill and Anne for helping me to run these important events. The pity is we have not recruited any new players through these events.

Some great social events:
The first annual Brian Price Memorial Melee took place on 11th April, with 44 players - 14 of whom were members of the Price family. It was also well supported by the Half Crown with 24 members in attendance. The weather held out and £240 was raised through registration fees, BBQ and a tombola, all of which was donated to The Northamptonshire/Warwickshire Air Ambulance. The family are looking for this to be an annual event.
A great night was had for the annual Stockton Cricket Club challenge, although only 8 cricketers played in a straight pairs contest against the boules 'professionals'.
We held a 20th Anniversary Reception and Melee on 2nd May. To which 35 members, former members and friends turned up for the reception in glorious sunshine, including three founder members (Wendy Lewin, Anne and John Emberton).
Half Crown Club Day 2nd August - 15 Club Members turned out for our club day, which was categorised by free drinks and a free BBQ in reasonably good weather. John Emberton won the singles knock out, coming from behind to defeat Dave Hancox in the final. In the pairs, there was healthy competition with Rich Powell and Philippe Bonnet winning the final.
The annual match between HCPC and Coventry PC took place at The Crown Inn on the evening of 2nd September in pouring rain. Four teams from each club played a three round competition, which went to the wire with the unbeaten pairing of Dave Hancox and Bill Bentley securing a narrow 13-10 victory in the very last game to give the Half Crown 7 wins to Coventry's 5.
A Great Party on Beaujolais Nouveau Night - only 19 people turned out for this year's Beaujolais Nouveau Night, due mainly to the threat of bad weather. However, the weather held up and a pleasant three round pairs competition went ahead with Jerome Rousseau and Rich Powell being top team - unbeaten with +34, just holding off the strong challenge from Bill Bentley and Mary Sturgess who were also unbeaten with +30. This year's Beaujolais Nouveau wine was outstanding and we had a great party night with Frank Court on accordion.
Boxing Day Melee - 16 players turned out on Boxing Day, Saturday 26th December to blow away the Christmas Night hangovers. We enjoyed mulled wine, hot soup, mince pies and even some Calvados - and of course, we played Pétanque in unexpectedly mild weather.

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 29th November: Jerome Rousseau - Deputy President; Dave Hancox - Chairman Playing Committee; David Kimpton - Regional Umpire; Janet Kimpton - Regional Public Relations Officer.

David Kimpton was also appointed as an EPA Arbitrator at the recent EPA AGM

Disappointments for 2009 have been:
The Club was shortlisted for Senior Team of the Year in the Stratford-on-Avon Sports Awards presented on the evening of January 9th at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Stratford, and Rich Powell was shortlisted for Senior Sports Person of the Year. We were the very first ever winners of the Senior Team award in January 2003, and were disappointed to be outdone in 2009 by a skipping team from Stratford!

Half Crown Tuesday Club - Our training night has suffered extreme lack of support, with an average of only six members turning out during May and June and then none until August, so in September we decided to formally cancel the Tuesday Club until the New Year.

The Saturday Club has similarly declined with an average of only 4-6 members turning out regularly from a group of 11 stalwarts. On the positive side, we have raised £184 in match fees, Bill Bentley picked up the trophy as Winter League Champion, with Rosaleen Preston and John Emberton close behind and John Emberton won the Summer League followed by Bill Bentley who was very close behind. The currently contest 2009/2010 winter league is currently headed by Ian Brittain, ahead of Bill Bentley and John Emberton.

Regrettably, our friends from Evreux cancelled the 2009 twinning with The Half Crown PC due to the withdrawal of support for sports twinning by Evreux Town Council and the consequential lack of subsidised transport to Stockton. Russelsheim also cancelled their trip due to the high cost of getting here over the planned August Bank Holiday weekend.

On the playing side, The Half Crown Pétanque Club has again dominated Pétanque in the West Midlands throughout 2009, winning the Inter-Club Challenge for the second year running, but losing out narrowly to Whitnash in The Summer League.
The Half Crown's Dave Hancox, David Kimpton and Janet Kimpton, together with Jack Linstead from Warwick were crowned West Midlands Summer Triples Champions, and Rich Powell also figured in the money as a member of the team who were runners up.
We once again progressed into the last 8 of the EPA's 2009 Euro Cup qualifying competition, losing to Mistral for the second year running. We hope to do better this year with our strengthened squad who have once again progressed to the last 16 following two hard fought games against Coventry (4-3) and Whitnash (5-2). We now face Alexandra PC from Kingston-upon-Thames for a place in the last 8 of the competition which will determine which club represents England in the 2010 European Cup for Clubs.
We provided 11 players to represent West Midlands in their successful 2009 campaign at Brean. Jerome and Herve, together with new member Martin Baker were 2nd in the EPA Premier League; Martin also played with Robert Silvy in the winning team at the 2009 EPA National Triples, and another of our new members, Sofiane Lachani is the reigning EPA Shooting Champion. We also had a club member selected to play for England in the 2009 Home Nations Challenge. Congratulations to Philippe Bonnet who, together with David Mason from Whitnash and Brian Stote from Coventry, played in the winning England Home Nations Team on 15/16th August, and were England's second best performing triple with 8 wins from 12 games.