Classic City Petanque Club
The terrains at Lay Park suffered a freak tree fall last week. A 70-foot tall oak tree came was uprooted in the storm. The damage to the terrain was minimal other than having this giant oak laying across all 4 courts. ACC Leisure Services and other agencies are expected to clear the tree and repair damage to the chain link fencing and our stairs sometime soon. One just never knows…
CCPC will field 3 teams for the Carolina Petanque Regional Triples tournament in Asheville on August 29th. We are very proud of our players representing our club – including 3 players who will be participating in their first-ever FPUSA tournament!
We are also sending a number of teams to the upcoming Open tournament in Atlanta in September and to the Carolina Petanque sponsored Regional Mixed Doubles FPUSA tournament in Morganton, NC in October.
Of course, we are sending 7+ teams to the Amelia Open tournament in November.
Allez CCPC!
CCPC volunteers continue to improve our courts at Lay Park! We recently had another work day where we installed string boundaries to mark the areas of play – we no longer rely on the dreaded landscaping timbers as our boundaries! This addition “normalizes” our petanque terrains and brings them in line with the FPUSA rules and the type of piste that most clubs use. We also redistributed the gravel top-coat and smoothed the playing area. Thank you CCPC members!
As we always do around this time of the year when the weather starts getting hot, we have changed our start time for our Tuesday and Thursday regular club play days. Now, we’ll start at 10:00am. Sunday club play day remains at a 1:00pm start. We welcome everyone and you can always come a little earlier and find folks playing or come a little later and join in the fun!
CCPC is very proud of Heidi Davison’s representation at the Womens World Qualifier. Heidi was recruited to join a team with Carolina Petanque’s Denyse Haney and Cherri Sutphin. They qualified 8th on Saturday to put them into the Concours bracket with some of the best women players in the USA! On Sunday, they made it to the quarterfinals before being eliminated. Heidi’s team finished in a tie for 5th place! Best of all, Heidi developed quite a reputation for her excellent and consistent pointing and strategy calls – helping Classic City Petanque to continue to build our reputation as a club to watch. Thank you, Heidi! Allez CCPC!
Great coverage and great photos of the tournament at: https://morganton.com/news/local/gallery-petanque-world-championship-qualifier-held-in-morganton/collection_ba8f409c-b405-11eb-94cc-3354c175dc30.html#anchor_item_11
CCPC membership has approved changing our regular Monday play day to Tuesday, instead. This allows our play days to be more evenly spaced and we will have access to restroom facilities on Tuesdays. We now play on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Our “cool season” hours start on October 1st – we are playing in the afternoons at Lay Park: Tuesdays and Thursdays and Sundays 1:00pm. When the weather heats back up again, we’ll switch back to morning play. Come play boules y’all!
CCPC has patches for sale to our members at $5 each. These are very high-quality cloth patches, 3″ diameter, that can be attached to hats, clothing, bags, etc. We only have about 20 left! email: info@athenspetanque.org to reserve yours!
Stickers! These are about 3″ square and will hold up to the elements so, you can put them on cars, boule cases, etc. Many of us are buying them to pass out to tournament opponents as gifts – everybody loves stickers! (Note: The purchase of these stickers was made through private donations but the CCPC will receive any profits or extra stickers after the initial cost is recovered.)
COVID-19 has forced us to all think about the health and safety of ourselves and each other. We all want to play! We all wish it were not risky to be around others. However, the reality is that we simply must take every precaution. The CCPC Board has been through many hours of discussions and has solicited the input of our members. We’ve also been in contact with FPUSA and clubs around the country to get their best ideas and advice.
So, we have resumed our play dates and our members have been most cooperative, thoughtful, and careful. We wear masks at all times – nobody likes it but, we all know we must. We have changed rules and “relaxed” certain parts of the FPUSA rules in order to make this work. The games move more slowly as we must allow everyone a chance to collect their boules while maintaining at least 6 feet of separation. We wait because only one person in the game is allowed to move the ring. It’s tedious but, we are playing petanque!
With a close watch on keeping our distance, we can’t have triples games right now. We can’t use all 4 courts at Lay Park. In other words, we’ve been forced to limit the number of players who can play simultaneously to only 8 or 12. Some of us have to wait our turns to get into a game. Some of us have to sit out for a game. This, more than anything, really clobbers our long-standing policy of making sure that everyone can get into a game, without having to wait, and welcoming each player into a game as they arrive. It kills me to see any eager player just waiting for their chance to play! But, it is what it is, for now…
We have had to start using time limits on games. As more of our club members and guests begin to come out to play, we may have to have even shorter games. None of this is desirable but, probably necessary. We will get through this with your help and consideration. Please continue to make suggestions – we are always listening.
Allez CCPC!
Al Davison
Sports Director, CCPC
Greetings:
2019 season is wrapping up and I would like to thank everyone for a great year!
Carolina Petanque in now the second largest club in the nation with an official number of 109 members; we have added a few members since the FPUSA census in September. In addition we are playing regularly at 7 locations which is more than the entire North East Region combined this gives our members more opportunities to play and more exposure for the sport. Carolina Petanque has been very successful in hosting official FPUSA tournaments and continues to offer additional competitions and events for our members elevating the club’s experience and competitiveness. Fortunately we also had two members on the USA national team at the World Competition in Cambodia in November.
It has been a busy year and it looks like things are only going to get better in 2020!
The Carolina Petanque Board has bid on the following FPUSA Tournaments in 2020 and we have been given the following to host.
Mid America Select Triples April 26th at Asheville.
National Men’s Triples July 25 – 26 at Morganton
Women’s Triples World Qualifier July 25 – 26 at Morganton.
Mid America Men’s Doubles August 29 at Winston Salem
Mid America Women’s Double August 29 at Winston Salem
Mid America Mixed Double October 10 at Morganton
In addition to the FPUSA tournaments we have been discussing several other club/open tournaments though out the year and will send out information as we confirm dates and locations.
Note on the two National tournaments on July 25 -26. The men’s the team that wins this tournament will be the USA National Triples Team, however that does not mean that the FPUSA will send/sponsor the team to go to an international tournament 2021 but could be eligible to play if something comes up. The women’s team that wins the Women’s Triples World Qualifier will represent the USA at the World Championship in 2021. I have heard that it will be held in Thailand or New Zealand but it will not be finalized until sometime in 2020. If anyone has questions concerning the tournaments please send me an email.
In addition to tournaments in 2020 we hope that we are able to expand our locations to give more people the opportunity to participate in the sport in the Carolinas and build our membership to be the largest club in the nation.
What we need from you to make this a successful year is to renew your membership or sign up as a new member of Carolina Petanque. Currently we are awaiting the FPUSA to start taking memberships for 2020. I will send an email on how to renew or sign up when the time comes
Carolina Petanque will also need your help in 2020 volunteering at events and at the different locations expanding our player/membership base and keep Carolina Petanque growing. Without your efforts what has been accomplished and what can be is not possible. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered time, effort, and money to the club! It is greatly appreciated!
Finally this is a election year for Carolina Petanque and we need you to consider running for a position on the Board. All positions are open, President, Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer, and Sports Director. If you are interested in volunteering your time to serve on the Board I will explain in detail what is required and what would be expected from holding a position. I will be taking nominations for officer positions until December 31. To nominate someone or to run for a position you must be a Carolina Petanque member. In January, Carolina Petanque will hold the election.
Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to you and your family!
Kirk Edwards
Carolina Petanque President