Tomorrow never comes - until today that is

Promises promises I can hear you say - at the end of my last blog on 1st November I promised you more information the following day and yet here we are 5 days later and you have been patiently waiting for the rest of the story.......

I had hoped to do a bit of a live blog from Greenacres last Saturday during the Finals of the European Invitation Seniors, but Internet connections were off and on all weekend and so you will have to make do with this report on what happened - some of which you probably already know from Christine Stewart's report on "Theviewfromthehack". 

In my last blog I gave you some information about the origins of the EIS (as I will call it from now on), and then I left you hanging waiting for the rest of the story. Since the first year continental attendance has steadily increased with entries this year from Switzerland, Latvia, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Netherlands and Slovakia joining the Scottish, English and Irish teams.

Both the finals were all Continental affairs with Finland’s Timo Kauste (the holder) taking on Karl Grossman of Switzerland in the men and Sweden’s Ingrid Meldahl (going for a hat-trick of wins) against Susanne Affeltranger of Switzerland in the women’s. Home country interest had disappeared at the semi-finals following defeats for Scottish Champions Keith Prentice and Barbara Watt. Two other Scottish teams had reached the men’s quarter-finals but both Gary MacFarlane, who had topped a tough group with 5 wins, and Willie Jamieson, who by contrast qualified with 2 wins and a peel, were eliminated. In addition the World Champions from Ireland also fell at this stage.

Karl Grossman became the first Swiss winner of the men's event and Ingrid did indeed win her third title in a row but only after she had to put her professional skills as a surgeon to good use when her opposite number Susanne Affeltranger fell and broke her wrist. The Swiss 5th player came on to the ice and the team forced Ingrid to an extra end before succumbing. In the 8 ends of normal play the Swiss girls scored 6 singles while the Swedes took a 4 and a 2 - contrasting ways to reach the same total.

The presentation of the trophies took place at the closing banquet at the Holiday Inn at the Airport where after dinner we were 'entertained' by various team members singing and dancing in the traditions of their countries.

So another successful EIS drew to a close with the promise that it would happen again next year.

Winners of the EIS:

2008 - Claes Roxin (SWE) and Kay Gibb (SCO)

2009 - Karl Nordlund (SWE) and Isobel Waddell (SCO)

2010 - Keith Prentice (SCO) and Ingrid Meldahl (SWE)

2011 - Timo Kauste (FIN) and Ingrid Meldahl (SWE)

2012 - Karl Grossman (SWI) and Ingrid Meldahl (SWE)

After my involvement in the EIS had finished I was asked to play in a couple of club games and so on Friday I turned out for Carmunnock and Rutherglen and on Sunday for Reform - unfortunately my team was on the losing side in both games but I now have a rest before the Gormac International at Greenacres at the weekend where our Senior team skipped by John Sharp will be getting in further practice before the ECA Senior Championships in early December.

After that I am playing in the Braehead Mixed Doubles and then the following weekend at the I'Anson Trophy in Stranraer before heading South after my little curling holiday up here in Scotland. So if you see me in an ice rink near you in the next 2 weeks don't be surprised.

Still here at Greenacres

After the Welsh Bonspiel I had a couple of days with family before it was back to Greenacres for the European Senior Invitation, now in its fifth year. The round robin stages are currently drawing to a close with the final games tomorrow before the men's quarter finals tomorrow evening.

The competition began in 2008 using funds which were left over from the 2005 Women's Worlds held in Paisley at the now defunct Lagoon Centre.The aim has always been to have 18 men's teams and 12 women's teams playing in sections of 6. In the first year there was a very Scottish flavour to the competition with 7 of the men's teams and 8 of the 11 women's teams being Scottish (and two more of the women's teams were Irish teams based in Scotland).

This has gradually changed and there is a much more European flavour to the competition with just 4 Scottish teams in each competition though we still also have the Scottish based Irish teams and a smattering of Scottish based England players.

I shall have to continue with this particular blog tomorrow but for the moment you can anticipate the rest of what I have to say!!!!

And now on to Greenacres

Since my last blog from Dumfries and the Duncan Stewart Trophy I have been home to Bedford for a few days and am now back up in Scotland where last weekend I participated in the Welsh Bonspiel at Greenacres. Lots of familiar faces there including my old school team mates, Graeme Adam and Ken Horton, both of whom I was destined to meet and to lose to!!!

The Welsh Bonspiel has been going since 1978 and was originally based in the Deesside ice rink in North Wales where the Welsh CA continue to hold curling on a Monday, though I hear that the ice this year is deteriorating and numbers are falling, which is a shame as the Welsh CA have built up a good body of curlers there with many who have been dedicated to the cause of Welsh Curling for a long time.

The Bonspiel was played at Deesside until 1989 before moving to Scotland and Forest Hills for 8 years and Letham Grange for 2. Since 2003 it has found a home at Greenacres.

In 1979 the afore-mentioned Graeme Adam and Ken Horton had won the Bonspiel in Deesside and while Graeme has been back and won all of the various trophies on offer many times, Ken reckoned that this was his first return to the Bonspiel since 1980.

Twenty teams participated this year with many former winners appearing.and as usual the competition was keen. In the Red Group, Andrew Woolston (who had won the B Final last year) came thorough undefeated with David Robertson (skipping Andy Carr's entry) in second place and Michael Yuille third. The green group had no 100 per-centers after Graeme Adam and Ken Horton had peeled their game but they both won their other 3 games to finish first and second with Ken getting the number one spot by one end. Colin Martin, who had lost the main final for the past two years qualified in third position.

The C final for the Stan Williams Trophy was the least exciting of the the three finals for the spectators with Michael Yuille, Delphine How, Gordon Nicholl and Lyn Black beating Colin Martin 9-4 in 7 ends. The B final went all the way, and, thanks to some spectacular in-wicks in the last two ends, Graeme Adam, Liz Jamieson, Jim Jamieson and Julia Adams scraped past David Robertson by 6-4.

In the A final it looked as though Ken Horton was on his way to victory being 2 up going into the last end with last stone, but two uncharacteristic misses saw the extra end being played in which Andrew Woolston and his team left Ken with a raised double for victory, but a narrow miss gave the victory to Andrew, Lesley Gregory, Martin Gregory and Lauren Baxter.

And now I am back here at Greenacres for the 5th European Seniors Invitation, which will be the subject of the next blog.

Duncan Stewart Trophy at Dumfries

The ECA held the third Duncan Stewart Trophy at Dumfries Ice Bowl at the weekend with 4 teams competing. Unfortunately Duncan's widow, Mary, could not be with us this year owing to illness. The competition is open to individuals who are then drawn into teams at the start of the weekend after they have been graded by a competitions committee to make sure that 4 skips do not play together.

The original idea for the competition came from current ECA President, Alison Arthur, who was there as the solitary spectator throughout the weekend and presented the prizes of unique individual wooden curling stones to each member of the winning team.

The 4 skips this year were John Sharp, John Brown, Phil Barton and Doug Andrews and there were 4 games to be played - firstly a complete round robin and then the top two would play off, and the bottom two, with ranking based on wins, ends, shots up and shots.

Results were varied with some pretty high scores and not that many close games in the end:

John Sharp 10 Phil Barton 4
Doug Andrews 13 John Brown 4
John Sharp 9 Doug Andrews 3
Phil Barton 8 John Brown 4
John Brown 14 John Sharp 4
Doug Andrews 6 Phil Barton 4
John Sharp 7 Doug Andrews 4
John Brown 8 Phil Barton 3

Overall winners on 3 wins were John Sharp, Phil Slater, Graham Stanley and James Gibb.
Second were Doug Andrews, Richard Hills (Sunday only), Martin Gregory, Iain Jamieson (Saturday only) and Jim Marmont.
Third were John Brown, Jean Robinson, Harvey Curle (Sunday only), Alison Barr and Doris McQueen (Saturday only).
Fourth were Phil Barton, Ross Barr, Charles Murphy, Susan Young

Quite an eclectic mix of nationalities in fact with Canadians and Scots living in England, English living in Scotland, Welsh living in England and also a few English living in England. This photo was taken on Saturday and shows those who were playing then (with thanks to Iain Jamieson for this and other photos).

Left to right - Doris McQueen, John Sharp, Jim Marmont, Doug Andrews, Graham Stanley, Jean Robinson, John Brown, James Gibb, Martin Gregory, Phil Barton, Alison Barr, Ross Barr, Susan Young, Charles Murphy, Phil Slater

It was the first time that the ECA have visited Dumfries Ice Bowl and we were made very welcome with signs welcoming us and an England flag prominent by the rinks we were playing on. It was quite a surprise to see how quiet it was as well as over the whole of the weekend there were no other games going on, just one person practising on Saturday and 3 of our wheelchair curlers practising on the Sunday.

When we found ourselves two players short on Saturday morning we were lucky to find Iain Jamieson in the ice rink cafeteria talking to Susan Young whom he had met on the RCCC Adult course. He was available for both sessions on Saturday and he got hold of another local player, Doris McQueen for the second session on Saturday. We invited the local players out for dinner and Doris brought her husband Duncan with her. During dinner we discovered that Duncan had been the manager at Streatham Ice Rink in 1982 who had arranged with Duncan Stewart for there to be curling after the ice hockey on a Sunday night. Quite an amazing coincidence that circumstances led to him being there on Saturday night as we toasted Duncan Stewart for the work he did for curling in London and England.

So Duncan Stewart - Susan Young - Ian Jamieson - Doris McQueen - Duncan McQueen - Duncan Stewart - 5 degrees of separation - Amazing!

And here are a few more pictures of the action at Dumfries:

Finally many thanks to Graham Sloan for helping us at the weekend and we hope to return to Dumfries some time soon - it is actually where I was born and lived for 4 years - and the house we lived in is approximately 5 minutes walk from the rink - now that would be bliss these days!!

Turnberry - Rounds 2 and 3

Apologies for lack of updates from the Ayrshire Coast but it has been a busy couple of days since my last report. The meetings finished today with the WCF Annual General Assembly which tends to be these days a run through of a set list of agenda items in the form of reports from various Board Members, the main meat of the discussion having taken place at the Open Meetings earlier in the week.

The second last item is the approval of new member nations, and you may remember that the application from Kosovo was deferred to this meeting from the one in Basel in April so that member associations could sound out their members and satisfy themselves of the situation behind Serbia's protest that, because Kosovo is not a country recognised by the United Nations, then it could not become a member of the WCF. The Serbia-Kosovo conflict is one of the many wars that have taken place in the Balkans in recent years and Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 2008 and declared itself an independent nation. Kosovo is recognised by all the countries in Europe except Serbia and, bizarrely, Spain.

After a presentation by the representative of the Kosovan Curling Federation, the floor was thrown open to comments and for 30 minutes, Marko Stojanovic of the Serbian Curling Federation presented the case why, in Serbia's opinion, Kosovo should not be recognised by being given membership of the WCF. As there were no more questions, the resolution would normally have gone to a show of hands vote, but, at the request of the RCCC, seconded by Holland and supported by Japan and other countries, a secret ballot was called. The WCF had obviously expected this as the secret ballot papers were ready for distribution and once they were all counted, Kosovo was admitted by a count of 80-16 with one abstention.

The secret ballot had been called for because, apparently, at least one delegate had received vicious emails after the Basel decision to delay the decision making process.

It remains to be seen what Serbia's reaction will be to this decision.

In other news, Flims in Switzerland was announced as the host for the 2014 World Junior Championships, the third time it will have held this competition since 2003.

As the rain teems down outside Ailsa Craig is invisible from my window at the moment and the last few bedraggled delegates stream in quite literally from the golf course. The Congress has been a great success and will be a regular event in the WCF calendar - the 2013 version will take place at the end of August at a venue still to be announced, though the decision is near.

There were many other things discussed during the week and I will try to find the time to tell you all about them in future blogs. In the meantime I go off to Dumfries tomorrow to play in the ECA's Duncan Stewart Trophy this weekend.

Turnberry - Round one - level par

And so at 2330 your lonely blogger finds time to review the first day's play here at the Turnberry resort.When play began at 0900 in front of a full house of delegates the decision to set up this new WCF congress seemed to have paid off with some nations represented in full for the first time for many years and others making a rare appearance. There were a lot of new delegates to get to know and therefore some interesting news about developments in far -off countries, e.g. Brazil who hope to have their first curling rink operational within 2 years.

But the business began with further developments on the new Constitution being put together by a Commission chaired by Graham Prouse of Canada. Comments received in Basel had been incorporated into the latest thinking and delegates were fed a number of recommendations which the WCF would like to have views on, plus a number of straightforward questions.

At this time of night my notes appear a bit blurred in front of me, but at times I felt sorry for Graham as the responses from the congregation of delegates were not forthcoming in any great number, either in agreement or in opposition to the proposals. Further discussion tomorrow will see the commission conducting a number of straw polls to gauge the mood of delegates, so that a draft Constitution can be prepared for voting on at next year's congress.

I will try and sum up at the end of the week what these proposals might be.

After lunch WCF Director of Finance, Andy Anderson, led the delegates through a number of spreadsheets which indicated that the finances of the WCF remain in good health with approximately $14million spread around various bank accounts.Current projections indicate that by the end of the current Olympic quadrennial period the WCF should have achieved one of their financial aims in having enough money in the bank to enable it to operate for at least one year with no large pot of Olympic or any other income being available.

After the official business of the day was completed the delegates were then taken on a number of tours - one bus load went to the Kay's stone factory at Mauchline via the Electric Brae and Rabbie Burns country while others went on a whisky tasting trip or went direct to Ayr Ice Rink for the first WCF Congress Bonspiel where they were joined later by the rest of the delegates for an evening of curling and a meal.

I joined the tour of the Kays factory where Mark Callan and Donald McRae welcomed us to see how curling stones are made - I have photos on my phone which I will add here later. As I said in my last blog the appearance of the factory surprised a number of delegates who were obviously expecting a modern industrial unit with computer driven machine tools producing these millimetre perfect curling stones. The reality of course is a small unpretentious little factory in the back streets of Mauchline where 50 year old machines, lovingly tended and modified to suit the processes involved, produce millimetre perfect curling stones. The main issue is the outcome of the process and nobody can say that the methods used do not produce the outcome required.

Then it was on to Ayr Ice Rink where the delegates, who wished to participate, played 4 ends of curling without a major international incident. My Anglo - Croatian - Chinese - Austrian conglomerate were not so successful against the might of Germany-Estonia-Denmark-Lithuania losing by 2-6, but the eventual winners won by 13-3 (in just 4 ends!!) by scoring a 6 and a 7 - so close to an 8 - and proved that when it comes to playing in Scotland, the RCCC always win!!. The winning team was skipped by RCCC President Bill Duncan with help from New Zealand and Netherlands and Germany.

So day one passed and  a few birdies were neutralised by a few bogies along the way and so level par was a fair score. Here's hoping that tomorrow will see us getting into red figures.

In full view of Ailsa Craig

This may be the first post of many this week as I am off tomorrow to the Turnberry Resort where the World Curling Federation is holding the first World Curling Congress from Tuesday evening until Saturday morning. A very nice place for a junket you may think - and you would probably be right!! But as you can see below a thrill packed agenda awaits myself and the other hundred plus representatives from the curling nations of the World.

This is the first of what will be an annual event and will replace the 2 sets of meetings which the WCF have previously held at the European and World Championships. It does of course mean that "going to see my team play curling" will no longer be an acceptable excuse for not appearing at a meeting!!!

Tuesday 16th October

PM Delegates Arrive / Free Afternoon
1930  Pre Dinner Drinks and Opening Dinner supported by Event Scotland / Scottish Government

Wednesday 17th October
 
0900 Open Meetings -  Governance Discussions - Further discussion on the proposed new Constitution for the World Curling Federation
1200 Lunch
1300 Open Meetings - Finance and Budget - Discussion on the Financial Reports 2011/12 and the Budget for the 2013/14 Financial Period
1500 Leave for Visit to the Kays Factory
1600 Leave for Ayr Rink from Hotel for those not visiting Kays Factory
1700 Leave Kays for Ayr Ice Rink
1815 Curling Games and Evening Meal at Ayr Ice Rink

Thursday 18th October

0900 Open Meetings - Competitions and Development (inc Rules) - Presentations from and discussions with the new Competitions and Development team
1300 Lunch
1400 Break-Out Meetings - Zonal Commission Meetings - An opportunity for each Zonal Commission to meet and discuss and proposed future structure and methods of working to be included in the new constitution.
1545 Open Meeting - Membership Applications - An opportunity to meet and discuss applicants for membership of the WCF
1730 Buses depart for County Halls for South Ayrshire Council and Royal Caledonian Curling Club Reception
1900 Civic Reception (drinks and Evening Meal)

Friday 19th October

0830 Annual General Assembly
Lunch @ Hotel Time to be confirmed
PM Golf or visit to Kays for those who did not go on Wednesday or other sightseeing trip for non-golfers
1930 Pre Dinner Drinks sponsored by sportscotland
2000 Closing Dinner and Dance

Saturday 20th October
Departure for Congress Guests

So the major hot topic is likely to be the new constitution of the WCF which proposes the setting up of Continental Commissions and which will probably lead to the demise of the European Curling Federation as previously discussed in this blog back in April when we were in Basel.

An interesting session is planned for 1545 on Thursday which is blandly titled "Membership Applications - An opportunity to meet and discuss applicants for membership of the WCF." but which is principally concerned with resolving the issue raised in Basel by Serbia when Kosovo applied to join the WCF and the issue was set aside to be discussed this week.

Having visited the Kay's factory at Mauchline, I know what to expect but I have not yet taken anybody there who has failed to be astonished by the appearance of the place - and it will be interesting to hear what the delegates have to say about it.

It is a shame that visiting Ailsa Craig is not on the agenda but its status as a bird sanctuary makes that impossible I believe, but at least we will be able to look across at it from the hotel every day and reflect on its importance in the development of the "beautiful game" - at least we deserve it more than that other abomination that calls itself that!!! - Discuss!!!!.

So if I can find the time in the packed schedule I will sit down and pass on my thoughts on the happenings at Turnberry this week while others brave the gale force winds and lashing rain to hit a wee ball around a field!!!