Norman, Corrie and Liz.
Original caption removed for the sake of my health.
The centre was larger than we expected with a "courtyard" of around 80m x 40m surrounded on three sides with the stables and the main administrative building occupying the fourth side. The live-in guests stay at another site and travel by minibus whereas various local schools and organisations send pupils for day sessions.
They have in the region of two dozen horses, looked after by the young people using the centre - under the supervision of the staff.
For any doubters out there, I can say this. We approached one young lad with learning disabilities and asked him his name and how long he had been at the centre in a friendly fashion. He was able to answer us but was very shy, didn't like making eye contact and clearly felt uncomfortable, so we pestered him no more. However, he was completely confident to climb into the stable (unsupervised) with a tonne of live horse, clamber all around it fitting the bridle and saddle and getting it ready for riding. It was really heart warming to see how confident the young man was in the presence of such a large animal and what self esteem he must have gained from the bond he had developed with it.
Our money went in part to fund the purchase of a new horse and partly towards the ongoing target of refurbishing the tack room. This is where most of the learning takes place and the youngsters have sessions aimed to develop their reading, writing and communications skills in addition to learning the ins and outs of horse maintenance! The building is currently very much of the breeze-block and hay-bale variety and could do with something a little more accommodating for learning. Currently, they have raised about one third of the £300,000 needed for the project.
The Race for Life
Jane Randle (right) would like to thank the Club, friends and her relatives in helping her raise over £500 in the Race For Life, which she completed on Sunday 21st June, and looks forward to doing it again next year.
It is with deep regret that we have learned of Jane’s recent passing, since the first issues of this newsletter went to print. Our deepest sympathies to all her family and friends.
Helping local schools
June – Thanks to your efforts the Club was able donate almost 7,500 Tesco and Sainsbury vouchers to Mudeford Junior School and Burton Nursery.
The vouchers can be redeemed against various items of schools equipment. See the Charities notice board for “Thank you” letters.
What’s been happening …
Assistant Steward Rob Boulton survived his recent painful encounter with a cricket ball. He is currently suing his former games teacher for his advice to “keep your eye on the ball” and will shortly be transported to London Zoo to mate with Ching Ching.
Spot the difference competition
Pussyfoot – 27th June 2009.
Another successful Pussyfoot with no less than 123 diners attending. In addition to the superb food, the audience enjoyed comedy from the excellent Russ Williams.
A special thank you to the many, many people who worked so hard to make this event a success and in particular to Mark Roper for his great help in handing over Pussyfoot and all other Entertainments related matters.
Caption competition?
A collection held on the night for Armed Forces Day raised a fantastic £427.90 as well as a £40 donation to Julia's House.
Sports and games news
Snooker – Pussyfoot Pairs
John Sheppard and Tony Mathews are the proud winners of this year’s snooker doubles competition.
Poker by Dave Hastings
On Sunday 31st May, some of the winners from the recent poker league went to Portsmouth to play in the Redtooth League regional final. One of our players Alex Feast did extremely well and came 5th – qualifying for the National Finals.
Alex and Joey
Our in-house league was won by Richard Thomas. The top 16 in the league fought a tough battle to decide the winner of the League Final on Sunday 28th June. With big prize money at stake all wanted to be the winner.
Richard Thomas and Joey Hastings
However honours again went to Phil Marchi (below) after a long afternoon of play.
The top 8 were as follows.
1st Phil Marchi
2nd Rob Boulton
3rd Greg Lisk
4th James Blackshaw
5th Gordon Wallace
6th Neil Haskell
7th John Challen
8th Richard Thomas.
Entertainment news
On 20th June, there was an experimental mini-bingo session during the half time interval on Saturday night. This certainly increased numbers in the lounge but not to the extent that we could afford to do it too often. We may try it once more a bit later in the year.
Anyway, the winner of the £100 full house was Sharon Morgan who,
as you can see, soon attracted the attentions of dubious men!
“Look at my wad”
I only needed one number myself but if winning means you have to hug Malcolm, I’ll pass!
The Fab Beatles – 15th August 2009.
This band is one of the best Beatles tributes around and, I can assure you, they cost a few bob! Some extra money became available due to a change in the way certain parts of the Entertainments budget are funded and it was agreed that a special treat for the members, in these difficult times, was in order!
The event has been advertised as “Members only” however, following a review by the Committee, it has now been decided that non-members may be signed in, in the usual way for a £1 fee. However, please note: there must be NO reserving of seats for people who have not yet arrived. Also please keep the bar area clear for service - gentlemen are encouraged to make the short trip to the Men’s Bar if overcrowding becomes a problem.
Anyway, whatever happens, the advice is GET IN EARLY as it will be busy. If you want a seat, get in VERY early! The band will be on at about 9pm and there will be a disco and an extension.
I’m delighted to report that some of you have been making use of the Entertainments Suggestion Box in the Lounge. So far most of the suggestions have been anonymous – but that’s okay. Requests so far include:
· A steel band – we’re looking into this one and may go for a Caribbean evening next summer
· The return of Blitz Disco – Darren will be back in January and July 2010
· Soul Intention will play the club in August and the Mudeford Crabs in November.
From "Miss Understood" – three suggestions for bands:
· Penny Arcade - booked for February
· Rapport – booked for March
· Poky – booked for January
Please bear in mind that a LOT of suggestions for acts are coming in. I do take a look at them all but inevitably we can’t book everyone and at least two thirds of all suggested bands are 50s and 60s music and I think it would become a bit “samey” if we booked them all!
August
1st - Filmed Race Night (extension)
8th - Coroma Disco
Sunday 9th - Adagio (lunchtime)
15th - The Fab Beatles & disco (ext.)
22nd - Soul Intention
Sunday 23rd - Alan Roberts (lunchtime)
29th - BBC Radio’s Jason Dean Disco (ext.)
September
5th -Brian Moon & the Satellites
Sunday 6th - Paul Hammond & Marrow Comp
12th - Laurence
19th -Envy
Sunday 20th - Adagio (lunchtime)
26th - Die Heidelberger Boys
October
3rd - The Bugattis
Sunday 4th - Alan Roberts (lunchtime)
10th - Coroma Disco
17th - Filmed Race Night (ext.)
Sun 18th - Paul Hammond
24th - Blowin’ Free
31st - The Eve of All Hallows (ext.)
Bavarian Night – Sat 26th September
The evening will be fancy dress and features Oompah band - Die Heidelberger Boys. The dress code has been relaxed for the evening so, pull on your lederhosen, don your brightest braces and place a feather in your jauntily angled hat and get down to some serious roistering!
The Eve of All Hallows!
This year Halloween falls on a Saturday so that seems like a good excuse to push the boat out a bit. We’re not giving too much away at this stage but, I can say that there will be an extension, there will be a fancy dress disco with Pete Mitchell with (good) prizes up for grabs and there will be entertainment from “The Mindboggler”.
Dinner Dance 2010
Following discussions with the Main Committee and the Entertainments Committee, it has been agreed to try out a minor change at Dinner Dance next year, in response to a suggestion received.
The disco will remain, as in previous years, but the band and the comedy act will be removed and the money used to pay for a full dance band of around 20 musicians playing from 9-11pm.
Online message boards
Did you know that we now have our very own online message board / forum? Well, we do.
I think this could be a real asset if we all start to use it. You can use the service to:
Receive communication from the Committees and give them your views
Find out about entertainment
Get the results of Club sports and games
Make announcements (birth, marriages and deaths)
Advertise items for sale (FREE!)
Advertise your business (FREE!)
Have a general chat with friends about anything you like – it’s not all Club related!
There are two ways to access the boards. Either click on the link from the Club’s website or enter
http://mudefordmens.proboards.com/
into THE ADDRESS BAR of your browser (the address bar is usually at the very top left of the screen – don’t type it into a Google search bar!)
Your letters and emails
Here’s a letter from Denise Hayes to the Chancellor (despite threats, daughter Julia Brolan hasn’t yet sent in her smutty rhymes!)
That’s £10 of drinks at the bar for Denise and a pint each for Ray Watson and Brian Jerrard (see Marrow Competition) for their contributions.
“Dear Mr. Darling,
Please find below my suggestion for fixing Britain's economy. Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:
There are about 20 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them £1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:
1) They MUST retire. Twenty million job openings - unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new British CAR. Twenty million cars ordered - auto industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - housing Crisis fixed.
4) They must send their kids to school / college / university - crime rate fixed
5) Buy £50 of alcohol / tobacco a week - there's your money back in duty / tax etc.
It can't get any easier than that!
P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances.”
And from Ray Watson …
Ray sent in a “fascinating” article all about WD40. Unfortunately, it took up 2½ pages which would cause the Committee some distress when they saw the photocopying bill, so here’s a heavily edited version …
Q) Before you read to the end, does anybody know what the main ingredient of WD-40 is?
The product was created in 1953 in a search for a rust preventative solvent and degreaser (water displacement compound) to protect missile parts. They were successful at the 40th attempt – hence “WD40.”
Some of the 43 uses listed by Ray include:
1. Cleans and lubricates guitar strings.
2. Keeps flies off cows.
3. Removes lipstick stains.
4. Loosens stubborn zips.
5. Untangles jewellery chains.
6. Removes tomato stains from clothing.
7. Camouflages scratches in ceramic and marble floors.
8. Keeps bathroom mirror from fogging.
9. Lubricates prosthetic limbs.
10. Keeps pigeons off the balcony (they hate the smell).
11. Removes all traces of duct tape.
12. Spray on relief for arthritis pain.
13. WD-40 attracts fish. Spray a little on live bait or lures and you’ll be catching the big ones.
14. Removing crayon from walls. Spray on the mark and wipe with a clean rag.
A) The basic ingredient is FISH OIL.
Coming soon …
Marrow comp – Sunday 6th September
Regular prize winner in our own Marrow Comp – Brian Jerrard – kindly sent in a newspaper clipping from the 27 September 1983 issue of the Echo. Under the imaginative headline “John grows a massive pumpkin” it features Southbourne Ex-Servicemen’s Club member John Sellick and his pumpkin which weighed in at 271¾lbs a mere 227lbs heavier than our winner last year.
So, come on MMC, they may have won the Frank Sellick Trophy this year but let’s see if someone can beat that pumpkin! And going by last year’s entries, it won’t be Denis Webb!
Ladies night – Wednesday 9th Sept.
(To be confirmed)
Not 100% definite yet but it looks very much like a trip to the Pavilion to see That’ll Be The Day. See the notice board for further details.
Club BBQ?
Again, not confirmed but keep an eye out for a possible barbecue or hog roast (at the rear of the Club, with the car park partially closed off) sometime this summer.
Stop press …
Card players will be familiar with “one-eyed jacks” but it seems to me that “one-eyed Gordons” are rather more common.
Think about it, our great leader, Mr. Brown is famously one-eyed after a rugby injury (but being a politician he has two faces and so the total remains as one would expect).
Goal keeping legend Gordon Banks famously lost the use of an eye when his car crashed into a ditch.
No surprise then that Gordon Nash should spend many hours wandering around the Club last Friday, complaining to anyone who’d listen about the sudden deterioration of his vision in one eye. Alas, such was the degree of deterioration that he was the only one who couldn’t spot the fact that he had a lens missing from his specs!
Contact Newslink
Write to Newslink via the Club.
E-mail via the Club web site. Or call Rich Leyshon on xxxxxxxxxxxx.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment