November 10th 2007

Dear Member,

As your incoming-President, I would like to thank the members of last year’s Executive committee for encouraging and proposing me to take on this challenging but exciting position for the forthcoming year. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the members who attended this year’s AGM, and for making it one of the quickest in Welsh pétanque history!

Last year, under the leadership of Don Jenkins, the WPA Executive had a difficult job as we had very little historical data to base our role on. However, during the year the Executive worked together extremely well as a team, and we believe we have established a good foundation for the future.

Don Jenkins has moved to the post of Executive Vice-President, a position that he is very keen to get his teeth into. The Executive and I will rely on his honesty and fairness to keep us in check and help us to keep focused on the membership at all times.

Two members of the WPA Executive resigned this year, Dave Cannan and John Legge. In his President’s Report, Don thanked them for their service to the WPA over the past years; I do not intend to add anything more but my thanks for all their hard work.

As people leave, new people come to the fore to carry on the good work. I would therefore like to welcome Bob Pugh (Wenvoe P.C.) as Vice-President Playing, a difficult and demanding role on the Executive, but I am confident that Bob will take this role in his stride and bring a fresh approach to the position. Secondly, I would like to welcome Phil Bradshaw (Monkstone P.C.) to the Executive as Publicity Officer; with Phil’s contacts within the UK and abroad his role will be particularly important with the proposed changes to the sport in Wales.

So what of the future? On 31st October the membership of the WPA voted to move towards direct affiliation to the FIPJP (The sports world governing body). This is an exciting step for the sport in Wales. What will it mean for the membership? Well, for many, you will see no difference - it will play as normal. However, for those who play at a National level, there is now a greater opportunity to represent Wales at a truly international level; this has to be good for the sport.

The Executive voted to maintain the current membership at £10.00 with a full review prior to the next AGM in 2008. However, the club affiliation fee was increased by £10.00 to £30.00 per year. This affiliation fee has not been increased at any time since I started playing in 1996. As Don stated in his President’s Report, those people who play at higher levels pay more in to the WPA via entrance fees etc, and the new Executive have no intention to change this philosophy.

So what’s going to happen in the next 12 months? I see the following as important targets for us to achieve:

• The immediate task for this new Executive is to move towards direct affiliation to the FIPJP and the proper winding down of the BPF.
• To continue to place the WPA on a sound financial footing.
• To continue to establish a formal coaching structure that will enhance the WPA members to develop and excel and compete in the sport.
• To establish a formal umpiring structure within Wales.
• To establish links with schools via the local authority networks of sports development units.
• To further develop relations between Wales and our neighbours in mainland Europe; clubs can be a catalyst for this with their contacts in France etc. to receive invitations to competitions.
  • We have already received our first invitation to the Zurich open in 2008
• To maintain and strengthen our already excellent relationships with both the EPA and SPA.

Finally, I would like appeal to the membership as a whole. The number of registered members attending meetings has been very low, even for important decisions that affect the whole membership. It has been stated to me that the sport is “too political” and “all I want to do is play boule”. I would like to be able to be in the position at the next AGM to say these comments are a thing of the past. We all entered the sport to play boule, so let’s play boule.

The WPA is in existence and needs to run. All of the members of the executive are volunteers, many have done nothing like this before. We try not to, but on occasions we make mistakes. I will be the first to stand up and say to the membership that a mistake has been made. Through your club meetings and the general WPA meetings you can become involved and influence the decisions that affect the sport as a whole. Do not leave this process to a few members.

Let’s assign politics to the dustbin and play boule.

Tony Smith
WPA President

October 29th 2007

Bratislava or Bust!

Paul and I recently returned from a 3,300 mile round trip from Wales to Bratislava (via the Home Nations in Inverness) where we met up with Phil Bradshaw to play in the Centrope Cup. Along the way we played in doubles tournaments in the Czech Republic and in Bratislava.

The Centrope Cup The Grand Prix Series played between Slovenia, Slovakia, Austria, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Over the course of 6 tournaments teams and countries compete for the beautiful Centrope Cup trophy: the rules stipulate that teams must comprise of at least one woman.

We played in the last tournament of the series – one of a handful of the 94 teams not from the 6 member countries. The competition was held in the grounds of the Slovakian President’s Palace in old Bratislava, a beautiful setting that attracted a fair amount of publicity and plenty of passing spectators. The standard of boules was fairly good – with several of the teams warming up for the Worlds – and many of the women having returned from the previous week’s Ladies European Championship.

The morning consisted of a ‘Swiss’ where we played 5 teams in a series of timed games. This is the first time Phil, Paul and I had played together and it took us a little time to warm up to it - and Paul took some time to feel comfortable playing as main shooter after a year off! Despite a wobbly start we won the first 4 games, which put us in second position and gave us a last round match against the top team – the Fighters from the Czech Republic. The game was close, but they outshot us to win 11-7. With 4 good wins, we were 5th after the Swiss comfortably making the top 16 cut-off.

At this point we really hit our stride, playing well individually and pulling together as a team. We stormed through the knockout beating a Hungarian Team (13:0), a Czech team (13:4) and a Polish team (13:1). This put us in the final against the Fighters, to whom we’d lost in the last round of the Swiss.

Despite sweet thoughts of revenge, and having played a mean first point all day, I took the last game off and only 50% of my boules were counting. Paul’s hit rate dropped, leaving Phil with a lot of work to do. This dip against a seriously in-form team (the two men - who are playing at the World’s in Thailand - shot everything, hitting about 95% and carreauing 60%; Romana had just returned from the European Ladies where she’d taken the Silver medal) meant that we had our work cut out.

In an attempt to turn the game around we went for broke shooting everything and going for some really cheeky shots. At 12-5 down, with Romana’s first boule a 6 inches in front of the jack, Paul shot twice and missed, followed by my first boule rocketing past the head. We decided we had to shoot the jack to have any chance of playing on, but Phil missed. With me still hanging on to my last boule Phil shot again in a last ditch attempt to save the game. He hit the jack plum on the front, sending it rocketing into the air – we let out a collective yell of “YES!” followed by Phil yelling “NOOO!” twice as loudly as the jack struck a boule and sprang into open territory. With my one remaining boule looking very lonely indeed we agreed that we had nowhere else to go – we dropped the boule and shook hands. The Fighters were very deserving winners (in fact this win clinched them the ‘top team’ slot for the whole Grand Prix series) – but we were worthy runners up.

The following day (and despite hangovers from some enthusiastic celebrating) Paul and I played in the Club doubles competition – a smaller affair (just 26 teams) but with a smattering of Polish and Czech teams joining the Slovakians for the tournament. Phil was to have played but with his planned partner languishing in Scotland he opted for a lie in instead (lightweight!).

The first part of the tournament was again a Swiss with timed games. We romped through the 4 games with 3 good wins and one very narrow defeat after a drawn game demanded a sudden death decider. We went through to the knockout round, where our experience with Phil the day before really came into play. With the first two rounds being really tight, and the time ticking away we used some really canny tactics to ensure we won, shooting out boules that were outside the head just to keep the opposition’s scoring opportunities down. Two good wins put us in the semi final against an excellent father and daughter team from Poland. At 9-0 down things looked bleak but we never gave up on aggressive play and we scored 9 points in 3 ends to draw. Two dead ends in a row (with each team shooting a jack to save the game when boule down) ratcheted the tension up further but the Poles clinched the next 3 ends to win 13-9. They went on to win the competition in good style, whilst we took 3rd, beating another Polish Team 13-1.

The week before Paul and I had played in a doubles tournament at Havlickuv Brod a small town about 80km from Prague. Despite a rotten day’s play (we limped in with one win and a few near misses) it was a great tournament: the Czechs have a lot of very good young players who have had the benefit of working with French coaches. The tournament fell on the same weekend as the Ladies European Championships, and Mikhal – the tournament organiser – kept everyone up to date with the results as the Czech ladies cruised to a brilliant 2nd place which really added to the good atmosphere.

We had an excellent time. Not just because of our good results, but because of the warmth and camaraderie that everyone played with and the enthusiastic welcome we received as the ‘foreignest’ players at the tournaments. Just about every team played positive attacking boule, encouraged one another no matter what happened, and were generous in applauding the opposition when good shots were played. It was also noticeable how enthusiastically the teams playing for their country supported one another at the Centrope Cup - particularly the Slovenians who, after they were all knocked out, chose to adopt us as their own and became our primary cheerleaders! We were made very welcome, and boules acted as a common language – we made some good friends and secured more invites to further competitions.

Tansy Mayfied
Caerleon RFC Petanque Club

October 14th 2007

Photographs supplied by Peter Westall

October 3rd 2007

Representative Honours for Abergavenny's Juniors

Pictured left are three of Abergavenny Petanque Club’s Junior players who have gained Welsh National Representative Honours this year. They are seen being presented with a cheque from Mr Alan Tandy, President of the Rotary Club who said that “the boy’s achievements this year are exactly the type of endeavour and commitment that we the Rotary Club of Abergavenny want to assist with. Particularly when it is the youth of the Town who through their own efforts are taking pride in their sport and representing Wales and their Abergavenny Club in major National Tournaments”

Matthew Bailey, Ollie Pook & Matthew Howells have represented Wales at the Home Nations Championship held this year in Inverness, Scotland, the National Inter-Regional Championships in Brean Sands, Devon & the British Petanque Association National Junior Triples tournament held at Crondall Petanque Club in Crondall, Surrey. As well as playing for their Club in the local leagues throughout the year and taking part in many competitions around the SE Wales area.

Mr Nigel Mason, the Youth Development officer for Abergavenny Petanque Club (pictured above – back row, third from right) paid tribute to the boy’s commitment during the year and expressed his delight that they had progressed so quickly in the sport. He hoped that other boys & girls would see the example set by them and consider taking up the sport themselves.

Peter Clarke, President of Abergavenny Petanque Club thanked Mr Tandy and the Rotary members for their continued support of the Club’s achievements and added his congratulations to the boys on their brilliant year.

The Petanque Club meets every Monday evening at their playing area in front of the Old Pavilion by the Park Avenue entrance in Bailey Park from 7pm.

All are welcome to come and try.

September 30th 2007

WPA League Cup and Plate Finals

The 2007 WPA League Cup and Plate finals were played at the Monkstone Inn, Cardiff on Sunday 30th. Each competition comprised three rounds which were spread over the day.

The League Cup competition was between Abergavenny, Panteg 2, ISCA Romans and the Wheatsheaf, after the opening round ISCA Romans were ahead with 3 wins, Wheatsheaf on 1 win and the remainder on 2 wins. Round 2 saw Panteg 2 catch up on their number of wins, but Isca Romans were still leading the table with 5 wins.

The competition was decided on the last round, with the Wheatsheaf and Isca Romans failing to get the wins allowing Abergavenny and Panteg 2 to take the lead. Panteg 2's poor second round allowed Abergavenny to take the title with 7 wins.

For Against Wins Diff Abergavenny 121 92 7 29 Panteg 2 123 118 6 5 ISCA Romans 120 118 6 2 Wheatsheaf 100 136 5 -36
	Abergavenny 2007 WPA League Cup Winners. Ian Bailey, Julie Bailey, Tony Flynn and Frank Westall
Panteg 2 2007 WPA League Cup Runners-up. Chris Jones, Sandra Jones, Jake Caston and Peter McCarthy.

The League Plate competition was between Caerleon Greens, Penarth Pendragons, Penarth Pic n Mix and Panteg Phoenix. As for the League Cup the competition was played over three rounds. All four teams won 2 games each in the first round, so on points Penarth Pix n Mix went into the second round as leaders on +8. Round two saw a change in that Penarth Pendragons dropped a game to Caerleon Greens which put them ahead on wins, with Penarth Pic n Mix second with 2 wins and +9.

The final round saw a home derby between Penarth Pix n Mix and Pendragons, for any change for Penarth Pendragons to win they had to win 4-0 and Caerleon Greens to draw or loose. Penarth Pendragons failed to win all 4 games, winning only 3 and Caerleon Greens won their last match 3-1 giving them the title.

For Against Wins Diff Caerleon Greens 122 110 8 12 Penarth Pendragons 108 110 6 -2 Penarth Pic n Mix 117 113 5 4 Panteg Phoenix 108 122 5 -14

Caerleon Greens 2007 WPA League Plate Winners. Robert Derrett, Neil Wilkinson, Kon Tomczyk, Barbara Vaughan and Richard Harris

Penarth Pendragons 2007 WPA League Plate Runners-up. Tony Smith, Judith Smith, Hugh Harrison, Derek Jones and David Elston.

The WPA would like to thank The Monkstone for their organisation throughout the day and epically to the Monkstone In for providing a hot roast meal.

June 25th 2007

Back Row: Phil Bradshaw, Tony Smith, Judith Smith, Jean-Yves Robic, Derek Jones, Rod Dobbins, Neal Dobbins, Peter Hufton & Cyril Royer.
Front Row: Glyn Attley, Nigel Mason, Mike Jacques, Jeff Ball and Peter Westall.

June 7th 2007

June 7th 2007

Copy of the correspondence received from Cardiff County Council:

To Don Jenkins, Welsh Petanque Association.

Dear Don,

Just a quick note to thank you for your sterling work at our French Market Day in Cardiff Bay. Everyone concerned by the event was impressed with the professionalism and enthusiasm of your team despite the fact that you had another important event on that weekend. The Petanque helped to make the weekend different and was great fun.

We would not hesitate to use you again on future events and wish you all the best for the future.

Yours sincerely,
Dan Nichols
Event Development Officer / Swyddog Datblygu Digwyddiadau
Communications / Cyfathrebu