To all club members.
Our club has made a terrific start to the season. Many of our 22 teams are playing above expectations and the coaching team are delighted.
NEW MEMBERS
Since our last newsletter Daniel Stone and Jake Simmons have joined our coaching groups at Bishops Tachbrook School. Rob Bailey, Mark Bolshaw, Andy Brock-Davies, Simon Stone and Penny Walton have joined our adults’ club which meets on Wednesdays at Free Church after League matches (starts 8.45 p.m.). James Briscoe has also popped in and we hope he will become the 4th Briscoe to join our ranks, emulating the Knott and Singleton clans who also number 4. We still have a few vacancies in this adult session. If you know of anyone who is interested please ask them to contact me on 01926 811085. Please note this club will not meet on WEDNESDAY 5TH November as the church is holdine a bonfire party and I have offered to leave the car park and site free.
NATIONAL QUALIFIERS
Many of our Juniors and cadets entered the West Midlands National Qualifiers at Wood Green and all did themselves and our club proud. Several coaches of rival clubs commented on the strength in depth in our club. I will send an up-dated club achievements’ list to Tom as soon as possible. so that you can see how everyone did. I hope you will look at this regularly on the club web-site. Adam Cofler, Timmy Cooper, Lee Dorning and Olivia Fletcher all qualified to go forward to the Nationals in Preston next month.
COUNTY TEAM
Congratulations must go to Adam Cofler, Jenny Singleton, Katie Singleton and Lewis Singleton on their selection for the Warwickshire under 15 campaign and to our Director of Coaching, Chris Mulligan, who has been appointed non-playing captain/coach.
NATIONAL JUNIOR LEAGUE
We sent 4 teams (12 players) to the NJL in Wellingborough last Saturday and were delighted with their perfornances. Only 3 had played in this competition before and 8 are still young enough to play National Cadet League. Our first team, Kit Turner, Adam Cofler and Livvy Fletcher, finished 3rd in Division 1, Our B side, Jack Green, Adam Pulman and LewisSingleton, also notched 3rd in Division 2 with the C team, James Robertson, Tom Fletcher and Eve Briscoe taking 5th spot. Our D team of Jenny Singleton, Katie Singleton and 11 year old Ricardo Bolanos were 3rd in Division 3.
CHRISTMAS PARTY
Dudley is busy planning a club Christmas Party at FREE CHURCH on Saturday 20th December. Planning is in its infancy but we would be delighted if as many of you as possible will pop the date in your diary. We are thinking of starting at 10 a.m. with a table-tennis exhibition from Timmy Cooper and Lee Dorning. Team games will then take place and we are hoping that everyone can bring enough food for themselves which we can put in the front hall to contribute to a sharing buffet. That should take place around 1 p.m. Joining in the games is not compulsorily, you can just sit and drink coffee and socialise, but those who do join in find it fun.
Our club is a little fractured because we are so big and those youngsters attending school probably do not know those attending Free Church very well, nor our adults who play in the League or meet on Wenesdays. We hope as many of you as possible will take the opportunity to come and get to know one another and have some fun.
CLUB TOURNAMENT
Jill Weaving, with her army of helpers, staged a very successful tournamaent in September which attracted a huge entry and raised a considerable sum of money. We are staging another tournament at St Nicholas Leisure Centre on Saturday 6th December and we urge ALL of our League players to support it if we can so that we can at least cover our considerable costs and preferably raise some more money. We did make a small operating loss as a club last season and this is one way to ensure we are in the black this year.
NEW BUILD
We are hoping that 3 builders/developers will make presentations to the Church Elders and the Church Development Committee on Thursday 30th October. The hope is that they will build a new church and hall in return for some of the land on our site. I am Chairman of the Development Committee and will keep you informed.
Have a great season,
Phil