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News, tips and information Archive

 

18/06 The discussion document about the Jacques Cochonnet Cup could only ever have been put up by someone from either the Khandallah club or the Masterton club. I am quite sure that otherwise the label of "sour grapes" would have surfaced. The JCC has with just a few exceptions remained in the possession of these two clubs since its inception in 1999!. I hope that my well developed sense of justice and fairness will be echoed by many. -Tom.

 

15/06 Just to remind you again, external links (links to other websites) look like this: MPC Blog with a small box and arrow. All other links (without this symbol) are links within our Wiki. This site makes good use of one of the main Wiki features, the ability to make crosslinks on the fly. Being able to see what link will take you away from our NZPW (to an external website) will increase your sense of mastery. -Tom.

 

14/06 Remember, you must put your name with anything you publish on our Wiki. Our NZPW is a serious platform, and as the Wiki administrator, I am not as relaxed about not signing off as I am on our MPC Blog. If you log in with our Wiki password, make sure you also type in your name or email address. If a contributor cannot be identified, his/her contribution will be removed. If a person persists with making contributions without signing off with an identifiable name, the IP address of that person will be published here. I am sorry if this sounds dictatorial, but as the administrator I have a duty to make sure everything runs within the "Laws of the Land" - a kind of self-preservation. -Tom.

 

13/06 ".... However due to the unavailability of some selected players we are unable to send a second team.” (text taken from PNZ website). Should the names of these selected players be published as a matter of honour?.

Come to think of it, should the Singapore "second team" selection process have continued after the discovery of "the unavailability of some selected players"? After all, the list (including seniors) of available and high calibre players is substantial. -Tom.

 

12/06 I am surprised that despite the fact PNZ has made a real effort to send a second team to Singapore, a team could not be assembled.

“PNZ had proposed that two teams would go to Singapore. However due to the unavailability of some selected players we are unable to send a second team.”

This is surprising considering the number and calibre of the players on the list below who had made themselves available (this is not counting the players from the "seniors" list).

Maurice Belz, Tony Chin, Myles Cowper, John Greig, Grant Hackett, Andrew Joe, David Lippard, Sebastian Merval, Graeme Morris, Andre Noel, Murray Porter, Chris Priestley, Zac Rees, Ron Sandilands, Richard Swaney, Antony Yee. I do understand that not everyone can just take off. People have work and other commitments, but still, this is a large list of available players. -Tom.

 

10/06 From time to time we hear people talk about "stepping back and not getting involved and then enjoying the game again". All I want to say to that is that you can enjoy our game of Petanque and still stay involved - you can do both!. As a matter of fact, making positive and helpful contributions is a sure way towards making our game more enjoyable for all of us. -Tom.

 

09/06 If you have a clubroom and would like to put up a promotional leaflet about our Wiki, you can download a one page PDF here. Make sure you write our password on it before you put it up. -Tom.

 

08/06 The "home" page of the PNZ website was updated last night (see also item 23/05 on this page). You can read about the teams that have been selected for the various international tournaments during this year. You can also find a link on the same "home" page to a substantial collection of images from the successful Trans Tasman match. Substantial is the operative word here, as the page weighs in at a massive 1580 Kb! - if you are on dialup, be prepared to wait. This TT photo page has now (16/06/06) been divided over two pages and this is a good improvement. Enjoy. -Tom.

 

05/06 I learned from the Cockle Bay Petanque Club Newsletter that the APA website is no more. (see also item 23/05 on this page) "....taken out of cyber space! Régis Gomez the webmaster, has resigned from maintaining the site while the new APA committee is working on creating a new and more up to date website for the Auckland Petanque region". This is great, but it is not a good idea to simply abandon a website. Many people have this website bookmarked and many websites have permanent links to the now dead URL. At the very least the webmaster or the APA should have notified the NZ websites about this. Links to external sites which do not work, reflect badly on the site providing the external link. I have now removed the dead link from this Wiki and the MPC Blog. Another thing that happens as a result of this sudden shutdown, is that the APA URL will be dumped out of all search engines. A much better way of doing things would have been to simply have a statement on the "Home" page of the APA website saying that a new website was in the process of being planned or build. -Tom.

 

01/06 Our Masterton Club can take a lot of credit for making it more and more a practice to publish "Players Lists" on the Web. We found that Petanque players really appreciate seeing who is and who is not playing. It also gives an opportunity to once more show the starting times, and any drink and food arrangements. A few months ago Neil Dykes pointed out quite rightly to me that starting times are on entry forms, but only one team member usually has an entry form. I have received three emails from outside our region asking when the Masterton Midwinter Doubles players list was going up!. -Tom.

 

30/05 If you are after something and you are not sure where to look, consider using our search facility (at the top-right of any page). As a test type into the search box: phone call and hit "return" or "enter" on your keyboard. This should give you about two results. Happy searching. -Tom.

 

29/05 I have made some more adjustments to our Wiki style sheet. I have made the text links in the right-hand column just a little larger, and increased the spacing between the links. This should make navigating them much easier. I have also (through the style sheet) created a colour background rollover (a kind of yellow) for all links on our Wiki. Visual feedback also helps the user with navigating. Some of you may not realise that the three images in the right-hand column are also active links - one to our "Home page" and the other two to our NZPW sponsor Boules to You. The large red coloured title at the top-left is also an active link back to our "Homepage". -Tom.

 

28/05 I have moved the Wellington Waitangi Park public piste page from the prominent "Sidebar" to our NZPW Archive. No one has added any ideas to the Ideas page and no one has put their name up on the volunteers page (apart from me). In other words, if these pages are not looked at, they should not have such a prominent link (in the Sidebar) and are better relegated to the archive. In its place I have put a link to the much more popular Letters from Jacques Cochonnet. Jacques is Life President of the Société Internationale des Pratiquants de Petanquisme et Jeux Alliés (SIPPJA). -Tom.

 

27/05 Whilst going through an old computer I am in the process of decommissioning, I came across 11 MPC newsletters dating from April 1999 to February 2001. All 11 are in PDF format. The January 2000 issue has the Reunion Island World Cup 1999 Report. Anyway, they are only of historical value to our club members, but you are of course welcome to read any of them. -Tom

 

26/05 Petanqueorg has made available on their website all you need to know to run tournaments. You will find downloadable score sheets, etc. for the Pool System and the Swiss System. Find out more here. -Tom

 

25/05 Just remember, anyone can place news items on this page. Any news or thought about our game can be typed into this page. You can also make, or read comments on any page by using the "Comments" facility at the top of any page within our NZPW. As they say; don't be shy. -Tom.

 

24/05 The eight Trans Tasman photos prove to be popular, they have been viewed 129 times. In a week or two these eight photos will be taken down as a more representative selection will be made available on the PNZ website. Brian Smith has done a good photo display of all international events since he took over the running of the PNZ website. -Tom.

 

23/05 The PNZ website has not been updated since May 13. Brian Smith could be away, or the site could suffer from some kind of technical difficulty. The APA website is down altogether - has been for a number of days. This means that any links from this NZPW (or any other website) to the APA website will not be working until this issue has been resolved. Links to external sites which do not work, usually reflect badly on the site providing the external link - so lets hope it is short-lived. -Tom.

 

22/05 Well, I must say I am puzzled by the fact that so few people have entered our competitions. We have had two competitions so far, and with the last one (organised by Dave Ciano) we only had one entry (there were 4 others, but these people were family of Dave Ciano). A couple of observations: This Wiki is getting a lot of visitors - at least 50 per day. The value of the two prizes are around $17.00 each. This could be the problem – it is possible that people just can’t be bothered if they can only win a small prize – PNZ magazine subscription, and this time a bottle of wine. There is a good possibility that visitors are not aware we are running a competition. I also realise that apart from Rotorua, all the other terrains were in the Auckland region, and some of you may not have been happy about this. Nevertheless, this is a region with a high density of players – so this does not explain the low entries either.

Also, this last competition did not require the use of our Wiki password – just a click on an email link to David, was all that was needed. Mysteries, I just love them. We will have to go back to the proverbial drawing board to see what is happening, before we get our next one up and running. If you have any ideas or suggestions as to why we have such a low participation rate I would love to hear from you. -Tom.

PS. Thanks Dave for setting up the quiz and providing the prize!

 

17/05 It appears that some people think that the Discussion Documents are rules and methods set in concrete. Nothing is further from the truth.

In the end I hope that clubs, regional or national (PNZ) organisations will take up some of these proposals for consideration. If no one participates, we can at least say that there is no support for a particular proposal. Knowing this is valuable in itself. Contributions so far are from: Maurice Belz, Dave Ciano, Rita de Beer, Joanne Evans, Michael Emerson, Barbara Johnston, Dirk Winnie, Margret Fleck, Graeme Burnard, Tom van Bodegraven and Trevor Neilson. -Tom.

 

16/05 We had a case today of someone inadvertently not leaving a name behind after making major alterations to one of our Wiki pages. As administrator of this site I have obligations and responsibilities towards our sponsor Boules to You and the general Petanque community at large. We must avoid a situation where people begin to change text within the NZPW at will, without providing any details. Otherwise this highly successful NZPW could quickly spiral into a platform of cyber anarchy. If you make a change that goes beyond fixing a typo or adding a coma here and there, let us know your name. In other words if you remove add or change text in such a way that it changes what was there before, just sign your work so we know who to thank. The best way to do this is to use the "Discuss" facility at the top of the page you changed. Please also consult our Etiquette page, or follow this simple recipe: Act in the Best Interest of Everyone. Be Honest with Everyone. Put your Name under Anything you Write. When you login with our password, please make sure you also fill-in your name.. -Tom.

 

14/05 New Zealand has won the Trans Tasman 2006 event! Read all about it on our MPC Blog.

 

10/05 On 09/05/06, I emailed Brian Smith:

"Hi Brian,

Are there going to be any daily Trans Tasman reports available on the

Web during May 13/14?

Cheers, Tom."

Here is his reply.

 

05/05 We have been treated to an impressive series of photos of the muddy playing conditions during the 2006 Peugeot National Triples Championship held at Herne Bay. Boules up to the halfway mark in mud, players sitting on the sideline covered in mud, etc. Once the novelty of seeing these highly unusual images disappears, it is time to ask if clubs should be responsible for providing a terrain that can cope with all weather. Some may say that players should be able to adapt to any kind of surface. Others will say that deep mud is not one of them. You can partake in the discussion here. -Tom.

 

04/05 The good people of PBWiki have made some great adjustments to the way pages look. You may not immediately have noticed that the prominent login button has been moved to the right and is now a simple link. Next to this link we now have a useful "Help" link (please, if you have the time, brows through some of these FAQ). These two links are in the place were the search box used to be. The search box has moved a little further up the page (top-right). All these are excellent improvements. The main buttons used to bunch up on some monitors, as there are fewer now, this no longer happens.

Please note that for a while I will indicate (with text) if a page has "hidden" comments (so we can all get used to reading and typing here too). You can see an example of this here.- Tom.

 

02/05 Below is some text about Wikipedia and a link to the Listener web article. It is interesting, as this NZPW is based on the same principals. We luckily do not have to worry, as we are a small Wiki community: "This wasn't meant to happen. The idea has always been that Wikipedia would simply become greater and grander by the month, as its army of volunteer editors progressively refined and expanded its base of knowledge. But there are signs that it is the very tirelessness of the Wiki organism that is causing it to degrade." Read full article here. -Tom

 

26/04 A piece written by Graeme Burnard about the rules of our game has been published in the 2006 autumn issue of the PNZ magazine. This piece was first published on our MPC Blog in February 2006. It attracted a record number of comments (13). Graeme's writing style in this piece is best summed up as "written with a sharp pen, combined with a good dose of humour". -Tom.

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