Web Site: www.blackheath.co.uk email: harrington_rod@hotmail.com		Issue 2  October 1998  Season 1998/99

A couple of weeks into the season and it’s encouraging to see quite a few new faces in the bar. Apparently there are sufficient men to run seven teams comfortably this year which is great news as it has been a bit of struggle getting seven out for a few seasons. The ladies too can report a healthy membership and are running three to four teams at the moment. Please make the effort to introduce yourself to the new members and make them feel welcome.

Quite a few of the ladies complained to me about the fact that the last bulletin had a fairly strong bias towards the men’s section. This is probably true but in mitigation I had virtually no material from the ladies to include. However following in the footsteps of another great bastion of sporting tradition the MCC, I do intend to introduce more sex equality to this and future publications.  So ladies (and men), please send me your input by any means.

Subs are now due and at this time of the year our reserves are low but demands are high.  We are required to pay substantial affiliation fees to the Hockey Association and the Kent Hockey Association and whatever we may think about them we’d have no oppositions to play if we didn’t pay them. So please make every effort to pay your subs now either to your team captain,  Keith Elliot (men’s treasurer) or Carol Bostridge (ladies treasurer).  Reward (of a liquid kind) to the first team with 100% subs success.
AND please take a form from behind the bar and join the 200 Club

Everybody's efforts to recruit new players has paid off with a raft of new faces swelling the ranks. The committee and players of The Club offer their warmest welcome to the following new members (sorry for any misspellings or those missed out): Angus Williams (all the way from Exeter Uni), Matthew Day (an acquisition from East Anglia) , Baljit Kalsi (returned from exile), Mohammed,  Rick Oakley,  Sanj Dissanayake, Bob Bartlett, Alistair Burnett, Steve Neville, Elliot Hill, David Featherstone, David Murphy and Chris Norman. And goodbye and good luck to Sam and Jeremy in their search for academic excellence - we looking forward to seeing them back as soon as possible.

The next men’s selection meeting takes place on Wednesday 14th October. Please don't lose heart if you feel if you are playing too high or too low in the Club, selection meetings are held regularly. If you would like to find out which squad you are placed in, please make use of the online team listing at the Blackheath web site at which will be updated the following day. Failing that, your Captain will be in touch.

Please make every effort to continue to recruit new players for the Club. Word of mouth is by far the best recruitment tool, so if you have friends, relatives or work colleagues  who might be interested drag them along or give their number to Steve Miller (men’s section) or Anne Foley (ladies) who will be happy to talk to them.
 

Since the first weekend of October the bar committee have introduced a prize draw every Saturday. At 5.45 pm a member’s name will be drawn from the ‘hat’ with a £5 bar voucher their prize. There’s no cost to enter but to be able to claim the prize you’ll need to be present in the bar when the draw is made. Otherwise the £5 is rolled over to the following Saturday’s draw. Martin O’Malley’s  name was drawn on Saturday 3rd October but as he wasn’t present the prize was rolled over creating a £10 voucher prize fund on the following Saturday.

The Ladies 3rd team is providing entertainment at the club on 31st October. It may, or may not be in honour of an Irish team who are threatening to descend on them that weekend [sounds interesting - Ed]. Whether they turn up or not the ladies will be organising a Halloween disco on the Saturday evening.  The theme is Wizard and Witches and the ticket price (£3 in advance, £4 on the night) will include food. As most of you know the Ladies 3s are the stalwarts of Worthing and Thanet and they promise you can be pretty sure of a good time.  Tickets will be available in the bar or from Anne Foley.
 

The Joint Club AGM was held on 16th September and was better attended than usual.  As usual the main concern was the Club’s financial position and Alick King (Hon Treasurer) was able to report that we are just about holding our own (largely due to his management of the club’s finances and the successful hockey festival in August).  But a debate was started about the future of the joint club in its current form as the needs of each section develop and change in respect of astro and seasonal use. This issue has been taken up by the Joint Club Committee.
The AGM recorded its appreciation of the work of Alick, Richard Cleall, Brad Rehling, Conrad de Sousa and Tony Johnson.  Richard Cleall with the support of his excellent bar committee has that area under excellent management and has set ambitious income targets. Brad, Conrad, Richard and others gave our finances and reputation a great boost with the August hockey festival.  Tony has recently retired (through pressure of work) from the post of Hon.Secretary . We are indebted to these and many others who give t heir time and energy to ensure the efficiency of the Club.
The new committee (which is largely the old one) is in place.  In spite of what the fixture card says, Richard Dawbarn remains the Joint Club president with Maya Batheja (Ladies Hockey) as chairperson, Bill Griffiths (Squash) as vice-chairperson,  John Harrington has taken over from Tony as Hon Secretary with Alick King fortunately continuing as Hon Treasurer.  Other committee members include Colin Couves,  Glen Snashall and Richard Cleall (men’s hockey) and Anne Foley, Lynn McKellar and Carol Elliott (ladies hockey).  The committee meets monthly.

Dear Ed,
 In a club steeped in history such as ours the traditions of our forebears are sacrosanct. We have learned to tolerate such innovations as Ann Summers parties in the groundsman’s flat, superfluous furniture in the showers and the cricket net used as a washing line for ladies’ unmentionables ! However it is trying the self control of older members of the Men’s Section to unprecedented  extremes when they are exposed to the rolling hills of desire that are displayed when nubile members of the Ladies’ Section play pool in garments that reveal excessive décolletage.
 Nor can we concentrate on the serious affairs of the Club when a member of the Ladies’ Section consumes her chip supper during the Joint Club AGM. This sacrilege severely affected our beloved and highly esteemed Club Treasurer who had not eaten since lunch time.
 Do these perpetrators intend to shock us further? We need to know as several refined and delicate gentlemen may require counselling.
Yours sir,
Willie of Well Hall

Forgive me, but anyone reading the last bulletin could easily think there  are no women in the Club. We are not mentioned in the tour "report" but a Blackheath women's team also went to Thanet this year.  I'm not sure what went wrong, but the hotel we usually stay at had shut up shop.  I think it may have something to do with Cat Burgler's antics in previous years, although the money we put behind the bar last year may have financed a nice
retirement. This year we set off as Charlie's Angels and we were GORGEOUS, look at the photos if you don't believe me [I have and I still don’t - Ed].  I assume whoever wrote the Heathens report conveniently forgot us as we did out perform them in the "Shouting loudly for The Club " competition and in the discovating stakes too.  Cheers to Burgler, Jimmy T, Simon and Aidan for making it to one of the festival discos and jeers to the same quartet for sitting quietly in a corner.  JB would have been ashamed of such anti-social behaviour. We played hockey, but who remembers results?  I do remember our best game was the one where defence and forwards swopped positions.  That's a new formation for us to work on this season.  We received honourable mention from the DJ (I think 'not you lot again?' is an honourable mention) for our dance floor antics.  So the special mentions:  to Sally obviously, she knows why.  To Sally again for throwing up in the basin. To Susie for removing said puke from said basin.  To Bev, Elaine and Lynne for the most extraordinary wigs.  To Steph for designing and organising tour shirts and for just being so damn Foxy.  To Suzanne for being heard over the music EVERY time she spoke.  To Cath for dressing up so convincingly everyone looks at the photos and asks 'who is that? To Anne for donating her bra for the amusement of men AGAIN and not forgetting the two Steves who bravely accompanied us as umpire and minder, and managed to fit into the bra at the same time! - Tour Organiser