KOA in St. Petersburg

Rusty and Marcia sent along a picture of the petanque courts at the St. Petersburg KOA where they spend their winters in an RV camper to get away from NC mountain winter weather at their Deep Gap home.

Isn't retired life wonderful!

Abdallah

Khalid came over to Lexington last evening and brought with him a friend who had just moved to Charlotte, NC, from Morocco. Abdallah Smahi is Carolina Petanque's newest member and we welcome him to our country, our state, and our club.

Shirley and I took on Khalid and Abdallah on our home terrain. We had two long and interesting games and managed to squeak out a couple of wins against a very good team. Abdallah is an excellent plombe pointer and a good shooter as well. We look forward to many more chances to play with him in the Carolinas.

--Gary

Tom and Carol in Germany

Thanks to Christoph Mueller for the picture of Tom, Carol, Christoph, and others in a German newspaper.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 11:48 AM, Carol wrote:

30 January 2018

We played Petanque in Germany on Saturday, and we received this afternoon the copy of the article in today’s local Schopfheim newspaper.  

So, we made the news in Germany, and it is not “fake news.”

Love you all, Tom and Carol

Oh La La!

While we played in a cold rain here in NC, many of our members were able to play in the SE Regional Select Doubles on Sunday in Sanford, FL, at the Oh La La Petanue Club.

Members participating included Danny, Don E., Rusty, Marcia, J.C., Patricia, Terry, Sue W., Marc, and Kathy.

Carolina teams that played well enough to qualify in the top sixteen, thus making the Concours cutoff were Terry& Sue; Danny& Donnie; and Marc&Kathy. Terry&Sue lost in the round of 16, Danny&Donnie lost in the quarter-finals; and Marc&Kathy lost in the semi-finals and in the playoff for the Bronze 3rd Place medal.

Sunday marked the first time that Marc&Kathy had played at Oh La La. Fourth place overall out of twenty-six participating teams was a great finish. Hooray, Carolina!

Here are some more pictures by Marcia:

Rainy day women...and men

Photographer

Not staged! (I have witnesses)

For some reason, the crowd was small yesterday afternoon at Miller Park in Winston-Salem. Only six players turned out for our regularly scheduled program of Sunday petanque. Kerry, Bob, Gail, James, Shirley, and Gary played from about 1:00 PM to 4:30 in a rain that was at times rather heavy,

The good news? Pointing on a rain-softened terrain can be easy if you get the boule out there close enough that it doesn't have to roll very far. Submitted as Exhibit-A to prove my point is the last picture above. Those are my three boules with (count 'em) points #1, #2, and #3! If I could get groupings like that consistently on a dry terrain, I could outpoint Shirley.
--Gary

Area Representatives Committee

The 2018 Area Representatives Committee (ARC) has been selected. The members will be:

Bill Cooke (Asheville), Denyse Haney (Charlotte), Steve Gantt (Morganton), and Fred Marchant (Winston-Salem)

Bill

Denyse

Steve

Fred

 Bill, as our club Sports Director, will be serving as the chairperson of the Area Representatives Committee (ARC). Thanks to these volunteers, we expect to have a great year in 2018. Carolina Petanque will host two official FPUSA Mid-America Region Title Tournaments this year. One will be held in Morganton and one in Winston-Salem. More details to follow very soon as ARC wraps up finalizing the details.

There will also be several club tournaments, special events, and social functions throughout the year and the newly established committee will need our help to make everything successful.
--Gary

2018 Senior Games Kick-off Event

Chuck Vestal

One of our volunteer facilitators-- Sandra

Our other volunteer facilitator for the day- Daisha

Shirley, Bob, and I, along with our newly-appointed Winston-Salem Area Representative, Fred, attended an event at the Hanes Hosiery Community Center located at 501 Reynolds Boulevard on Friday. 

Chuck Vestal, Adult Recreation Program Supervisor and Senior Games Coordinator, had invited Carolina Petanque to participate in the kick-off event and subsequently in the 2018 Senior Games. Shirley has been promoting the inclusion of petanque for quite a while now since we knew bocce to already be one of their events. Petanque is to be held on May 9th at 9:00 AM at Miller Park (2500 Queen St) in Winston-Salem. Participants must have turned 50 by 12/31/2017.

For yesterday's event, we were given an area within the gym to allow attendees to try their hand at throwing some of the soft-vinyl petanque boules designed for kids and/or indoor play. Though we didn't try to actually play a game, it was more of a contest to see who could stop a boule within a circle at approximately 8 meters, we did use the morning to solicit players for our "real" petanque play which is held on Wednesdays and Sundays at Miller Park.

For you "seasoned" (50+) players out there, mark your calendars for the May 9th event. You could be one of North Carolina's first Senior Games Petanque Champions!

New local players

Annie and Earl

We played at 1:00 PM yesterday at Miller Park. That's going to be our regular time at Miller Park on Wednesdays and Sundays for the winter season.

We were happy to have a walk-up couple join us for their first experience with petanque, Hope to see much more of Annie and Earl in the days ahead!