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As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers but April showers also make holding outdoor events a little challenging.

Unfortunately due to the weather concerns we are postponing the Panache scheduled for Saturday, April 8. We’re looking at possible dates to reschedule the event for a Saturday later this Spring.

It’s finally out! We’re delighted to be hosting our first FPUSA tournament at our wonderful Lay Park facility. We made it a 2-day tournament so that the travel is worth it because everyone will play plenty of games and enjoy lots of fun, food, friendship, and BOULES Y’ALL!

Sports Director’s Annual Report 2022

Prepared by Al Davison for the 2022 Annual Meeting of Classic City Petanque Club

Last revised: Sunday, October 23, 2022

2022 in Review

Sporting Committee:   A huge thank you to all who served on the Sporting Committee!

Members have included:  Chair – Gail, Current members – Tom, Allen, Rob, Dominique, Rickamer, and Bob.   Past members include Ray and KathyLynn.  Please thank them all for their service and feel free to discuss any ideas with them at any time.

Terrain:  Just look at this place!   After years of hoping and planning, CCPC now has once of the best facilities east of the Mississippi River!   Practically the entire club has contributed significantly to this on-going effort.  We can all be very proud!

CCPC has enjoyed an excellent relationship with the Athens-Clarke County government – especially the Leisure Service Division and particularly with Lay Park.   Beginning back in 2019, CCPC has worked to forge a strong “public-private” partnership resulting in the outstanding facility we all enjoy today.   CCPC has, and will continue to, provide funding and volunteer resources in this partnership.   To date, the club and individual members of CCPC have contributed over $3,000 to the building, rebuilding, equipping, and on-going maintenance of our terrain.   This kind of relationship building and partnering with ACC has drawn the notice of the elected officials of ACC and many other clubs who have reached out to us to ask “how did you do this?”  We are always happy to help!

Overall Club Play:  We can all be quite proud of our continuous improvement in the level of play from all our members.   We are all playing so very well!   Our skill levels, strategy applications, and rules awareness have progressed so very far from where we all started.  

In addition to our petanque abilities, our club remains harmonious, friendly, generous,  welcoming, and mutually supportive.   We are continuing to grow our membership and embrace our new players.   This is just a great club!   No club reaches this level without having everyone contribute and you all have gone above and beyond!

Tournament Participation:  Honor, Heidi, Debbie, Ray, Rob, Frank, Michelle, Marilyn, Charlie, Rickamer, Steve, Al, and Gail all played at least one tournament outside of Athens. Jessica and Lavon are registered for Amelia.

Honor has played in tournaments across the country and won money multiple times playing on a variety of teams with players from many different clubs.

Michelle won money in the Atlanta FPUSA National in Consolante both days!  Saturday with her partner Marilyn and again with Charlie the next day!

Heidi won Gold (and prize money) in Asheville with a team she assembled with some friends from Carolina Petanque.

Rob and Al finished second (with Dana from CP) in Consolante in the APL Open.

We had an AMAZING turn-out for our “Diane’s Spring Panache” here with members of Atlanta Petanque League!  Ralph was our only representative in the finals and won money.

We have made a concerted effort to use multiple members as Tournament Directors for our own CCPC tournaments.  Many clubs have only 1 or 2 members with any experience as Tournament Director and that has sometimes created issues for them when those members had to be absent.  So far, CCPC has had Al, Debbie, Heidi, and Gail serve as TD.   Rob was scheduled to be the TD for the recent tournament that was cancelled but may yet serve at the next.   We are determined to “build our bench”.

Al has served as an Assistant Umpire (of record) at 4 FPUSA National tournaments as well as a few Opens – all as a “playing umpire” this year.   CCPC players were named to tournament Juries as well – Heidi, Rob, and Frank.

Upcoming Amelia Open: We are sending 6 “pure” CCPC teams and 2 other players who are teaming with players outside our club.   We’ll be represented on 8 teams!

Noteworthy:

Michelle, Marilyn, Heidi, and Pat went to Austin, TX for a Women’s Petanque Retreat and trained with about 50 other women players from around the country under the tutelage of a French professional petanque coach. 

CCPC hosted the Athens Academy French Club.   While Michelle did most of the heavy lifting on this, the Sporting Committee and the aforementioned terrain crews did a fabulous job of getting the terrains in top shape and making sure that we had boules, rings, jacks, etc. for an outstanding event.  

Allen has built a reputation for generously providing study guides for umpire candidates around the country.   At least 3 new umpires have benefited from Allen’s outstanding study guides.   Expect more to come.

Rob’s spectacular videos shared on social media are getting notice from clubs and players all over the world!   Many of you are more famous than you ever realized!    But not only is this entertaining for thousands of viewers, it is expected to benefit other clubs by providing them with the same kind of photo/video references that we used ourselves in getting our public facilities built.  Rob is truly helping to promote and build the sport in more ways than any of us realize.

Relations with FPUSA and other clubs:

CCPC continues to build its brand and be recognized as a significant member of the “petanque world”.  We’ve built both working relationships and lasting friendships with other clubs and members across the USA.  CCPC and its members are known and respected.

A huge congratulations to Heidi for being selected to the National Sports Committee!  Heid has been nominated to fill a vacancy as a Regional Counselor for the Southeast Region – a position that makes up the Board of FPUSA, the national organization.

Our relationship with APL and Carolina Petanque grows stronger every year.   We work very well together and, even if it is not often noticeable at home, these relationships help us on so many levels! 

We have built a very good relationship with Amelia Island Boules Club (the largest club in the country).  After 5 of their members have now visited and played on our terrain, they all want to come here for a tournament!

Additionally, Heidi and Al visited and played with La Boule New Yorkaise at 2 of their terrains this summer.  While in NYC, we met informally with the current President of FPUSA.  On the way home, we stayed a couple of days with the VP of Les Boulesfrogs Pétanque Club of Virginia and played with their club.

Having such strong alliances helps us with influencing positive changes to the national organization that will benefit all petanque in the USA and lends gravitas to our positions when dealing with our local government agencies.

Looking forward to 2023:

CCPC has submitted a bid to host our first ever FPUSA Regional tournament on May 20-21^st.   While the (somewhat convoluted) bidding process is still on-going and we face competitive bids from several clubs in our region, we feel confident in securing a tournament.   We already know that a lot of players from both the Southeast and the Mid-America regions are anxious to come to Athens and our wonderful Lay Park facility.

Last year’s attempt to schedule a formal training session with some well-known players never quite worked out.   We will keep trying!   We have been invited to the training weekend in Asheville on the 29th and 30th – Heidi and Al will attend and we hope others will, as well.   Just to be invited is another benefit of our relationship building efforts.

After the worst of the winter weather is past, we plan to do scheduled maintenance on our courts.   This will include bringing in more sand and gravel to rejuvenate the entire surface on all 10 courts.   All the areas that either saw major repairs or will be about a year-old will need attention to make the playing surfaces more consistent and account for the expected settling.   Of course, we’ll replace all the string lines with new strings.   All members are invited to submit suggestions for further enhancements!

It is my honor to serve as Sports Director of such an amazing club!

Allez CCPC!