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News, tips and information Archive

07/11 Mother of Jacques Cochonnet gives us her Tartelette Méridionale recipe.

07/11 Hawkes Bay Doubles

5 November Bay View Petanque Club

Winners: Robert Wilson & Maurice Belz

Runners Up: Murray Porter & Sharon Cannon

Plate Winners: Lee Taffard & Simon Hurley

Runners Up: Ian Hay & Mary Ann Gray

06/11 I listened to a conversation recently where a discussion took place concerning a player representing a club in both an interclub and a regional competition when that player did not meet the criteria for playing in the said competitions. (No it was not Footie and the game did not involve England.)

Now this situation - should it have arisen - could only have occurred with the knowledge and agreement (implicit, tacit or overt) of the committees of both the club and the regional organisation concerned. If a person accepts a position on an executive body they also accept the obligations and responsibilities of that position. These surely include both abiding by the rules and ensuring that the rules are kept by all members and/or groups of members. The "chairperson" also has to accept vicarious responsibility for her/his organisation's actions.

In addition, if rules have been breached, it is the responsibility of the executive body to have the practice stopped forthwith and the offender/s suitably penalised.

If the rules do not allow for the imposition of a penalty the ?rule? should not be there as it has "no teeth".

The conversation went on to discuss whether the alleged breaches should be brought to the attention of the "Ruling Body of the Code". It was thought that if this was done, the individual or group of individuals who did it would/could be considered as being "pinpricking" or even "vindictive" especially as they had not been directly affected by the breaches. Hello!

History is littered with "head-in-the-sand" "it-doesn't-concern-me" attitudes and I know of no good that has come from any of them. I wonder if any good has ever come from tacitly supporting wrongdoing? If a person/group of persons belonging to an organisation does not report when rules may be/are being broken, does this mean that they have no respect for the administrative body or is there a more deeply rooted reason?

Any reader of this missive who is a member of an executive body and feels that they cannot fulfil their obligations or duties, the answer is simple. REIGNS - RESIGN. -John Clark

06/11 I have given my view of why I think it was so bad not the send a team to Oceania on this page. Feel free to add to it. -Tom.

04/11 Message personal: Happy birthday, Brian. From seb.

03/11 The WPA has set up a Wiki page about the proposed Regional Competitions Player Selection process. Please make sure you get involved with this. -Tom.

03/11 Acting CEO position. As the information highway continues to be full of potholes, I would like to let those of you who might be interested, know, that Michael informed the PNZ executive and Council that as from the 31st October 2006, he would be stepping aside from that role. -Liz.

02/11 Just to let you know the draw for the first round of the summer interclub competition to be held on Saturday 18 November. Find out more on this PAGE. -Margret

02/11 I have removed the reference to an alternative NZ Petanque organisation on this Wiki. This invitation was put up by me out of anger and frustration with this incompetent and corrupt Khandallah/Wellington administration (PNZ). I realise now that establishing an alternative NZ Petanque organisation would be tantamount to walking away from the battle. -Tom.

02/11 A permanent record of the Jacques Cochonnet Cup debacle can be found on this page. It is hard to believe that the Khandallah players have been so childish about this. If they had simply let the JC go, they could have looked sporting, mature and maintained the moral high ground. Instead they behaved like playground bullies. How can one have respect for these Khandallah players. After this JC fiasco they have lost the last little scrap of credibility they had. I think Fay Doyle's role in all of this is simply one of the proverbial puppet - rather disappointing, and probably as a result of misplaced loyalty. -Tom.

1/11 General Notice for Hawke's Bay Players.

Kiaora Hawkes Bay Players, just a reminder that the HB Petanque Regional Doubles is on this Sunday 5 Nov, start time 9.30 for a 10am start, people should contact Murray Porter asap if they want to sign up. HB registered players only of course!

As most of the "tournament attending" HB Players will be at the tourney on Sunday, Murray is keen to use it as an opportunity for us to give him feedback to him on how we feel future NZ rep teams should be selected. This should hopefully give Murray a HB perspective on this issue prior to attending the PNZ meeting later this month to determine future NZ team selections.

HB players who are interested and would like to have a say on this should attend the meeting which will be held straight after the HB Doubles competition. As the tourney should finish no later than 4pm the meeting should start apprx 3.30pm on the Sunday. -Maurice.

31/10 Goings on in the Bay. As previously commented on the MPC Blog. The inaugural Dawn Tropy mixed doubles event was indeed a very enjoyable day. An aptly befitting event celebrating over 10 years of playing petanque in sunny Hawke's Bay. With no less than 7 international players supporting the event, quality not quantity set the play for the day. Congratulations to Dawn Gardner & Murray Porter of the friendly proactive Bay View Club for making it all happen! They without doubt demonstarted size doesn't matter. The legends in their own vindictive minds that chose to "boycott" this "district" event proved they, as always will be the losers! To quote Sir Winston Churchill "One can judge the democracy of a country by the way it treats its prisoners." unquote. The very same can be said about the way a sports club treats its members. Evil / corruption flourishes when good men (or women) do nothing!

And honestly, what were the "real" reasons the 11 year old Napier Petanque Club recently become defunct? With its club history, foundation members and life member all gone! Be nice to know the truth?

Dave Bosley, Ex member, now wound up Napier Petanque Club, past President of 3 years.

31/10 It is great people are adding to the SWOT pages. I think this is a great initiative by Maurice, and hope that PNZ takes note. It is important to know that there are quite a number of people out there who are actively working for the betterment of our game. -Tom.

31/10 From time to time we hear people say "we must get rid of negative views". This is great as long as people who are trying to make our game better by speaking out are not seen as negative. Please remember that the person trying to expose a rape or murder is doing this for the good of society. It would be quite absurd to brand this person as someone who is bringing up negative stuff. Speaking out against a wrong or injustice is a positive thing to do. -Tom.

30/10 I for one have no problem with people writing stuff on our Wiki in another language. We should celebrate cultural diversity and the use of other languages. If you do not understand a language, consider learning it, or you could just visit this web page. -Tom

30/10 Alors Seb, mais de qui tu parle??? ton traducteur. -Georgio

30/10 Oceania 1 Yesterday I obtained a printed copy of the PNZ reply to this Oceania Championship Tournament Defence 2006 letter (dated Oct 17, 2006). See also item 25/10 further down this page. I am really disappointed with the reasons given. It goes against the very ethos of both New Zealand and Australia, and in my view, potentially damaging for international relationships. I will address this issue in detail at a later date on this Wiki page. -Tom.

28/10 Message personnel: Georges, quand tu auras fini de jouer avec mon traducteur, tu penseras a me le rendre, j'en ai encore besoin! Merci. -Seb.

27/10 I have just spoken to Murray and we hope to get at least 10 of our pistes loaded with gravel and little rocks to make them similar to what is found in Asia and the Northern Hemisphere, should make things a lot more challenging for players - no more bowling and half track "shooting"!

BTW, just saw the SWOT pages, it looks really great, hopefully we will get a few responses for it. -Maurice

27/10 We now have the pages for our SWOT Analysis as suggested by Maurice in his extensive contribution (comment 5). -Tom

26/10 Just a couple words about the good time that I had during the Epsom Tournament. It was a great tournament, myself and Ruby had Maurice and Lee and Robert up here in Auckland to play. What a magic weekend we had, playing with these two players from Napier it was awesome and better thing on Saturday we as a team took care of business to qualify and we did ......... went home had couple of cold ones watch video of the Master 2006 relax went to bed about 10.30pm. Sunday morning got to the terrain warm-up. Lee was pointing like a champ, Maurice was the shooter and shooting well, and I in the middle we played very well all the way to the semi final, and that was the only game we lost during the weekend 13/10 to Murray, Pappy and Ron but we enjoyed ourselves, Maurice, Lee, and I it was enjoyable playing with the both from Napier thanks Lee and Maurice - hope we can do this kind of mix of player for more tournaments.

I really enjoyed playing with Maurice and Lee that weekend and as well having Robert at home was bloody good . Thanks guys for coming up and play.

Next stop Christchurch guys, be ready for it! -Georgio

26/10 Tomorrow night Petanque players in Auckland will meet at Herne Bay to discuss what they believe to be the best selection possess for New Zealand. Despite all the confusion it does simply come down to whether they want individual selection as we have now, or have a system of team selection. The Wellington region never voted on any options in the end. The reasons for this are unknown to me. I hope Auckland will be more proactive - with a resolution at the end of their meeting. Good luck. I will keep you informed on what transpired at the meeting. -Tom. Update 30/10: see also this page.

25/10 Oceania 2. Do the selectors and PNZ know that New Zealand can send just three players to Oceania. This has been done in the past by NZ and other nations such as Wallis et Futuna ( winning a silver medal). All this makes a complete mockery of availability issues. As far as I know there were 4 women and 5 men who put their names forward for the all important defence of our New Zealand Oceania title. We are still waiting for an explanation from PNZ as to why we are not sending players across the ditch. -Tom.

24/10 From time to time we hear people say that it is not a good thing to use our Wiki to discuss issues in public. People who think this way often say that it will do damage if we display our "dirty washing" for the world to see.

As I see it we can look at this in two ways: We can say that anything that is not "positive" or "constructive" should be kept out of the public arena. Or we can say that free speech and open debate is a positive thing and should be celebrated and encouraged. I firmly believe that visitors from outside New Zealand will say; "hey, these people have open debate, what a great thing". -Tom.

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." -Salman RUSHDIE

20/10 "I am hopeful that I may be able to clarify a couple of the questions people have, as these are ones I can answer." -Liz Rocks

19/10 Today we received another letter from Didier Galimatias who has passed on this letter from Jacques Cochonnet - Coch is Life President of the Société Internationale des Pratiquants de Petanquisme et Jeux Alliés (SIPPJA). -Tom.

18/10 I was delighted to read these words "democratic and inclusive process of engagement" by Joanne Evans on this page (comment 3). These are exactly the words I constanly use on this Wiki!. This bodes well, and a sign of a possible shift in attitude by PNZ. -Tom.

17/10 I would like to know when this Proposal was first released. It was completely unknown in the Wellington region up until a week ago. Do players in the South Island know about this? How long has it been circulating in Auckland? Why was it kept away from our New Zealand Petanque Wiki? Why was it leaked to NZPW?. -Tom.

Update 19/10: Email from Trevor Neilson.

17/10 A number of people keep referring to this Wiki as "your site" or "your website". Please keep in mind this is not my site. I am the editor and responsible for monitoring content only. This Wiki is our site. It is sponsored and no one is the owner. For more details see this PAGE. -Tom.

16/10 As we have received a second selection proposal, It would be good for some of the many players who have represented New Zealand such as Dirk Winnie, Michael Rocks, Barbara Johnston, Chris Priestley, David Lippard, Denise Bavidge, Ian Baker, Christian Fouquet, Murray Porter, Allan Fletcher, Richard Swaney, Georgio Vakauta, Geoff Greer, Laurel Priestley and Sharon Cannon to provide some feedback as to their feelings with regards to the two proposals. After all, these are the people that have been there. -Tom.

14/10 Quite a number of people are now doing edits on our Wiki.

Please keep this general web usability rule in mind. ONLY underline if it is a link. Underlining text in print documents is fine. On the Web however the underline is reserved for links only. You get the picture: don't confuse people. -Tom.

13/10 Imagine this for one minute.

Your town /city Lord Mayor is selected like this: Four people (four is only an example - could be any number) apply to an advertisement they have seen for the position. A small inner-circle of, say, three council people, select one of the four applicants to be the new Mayor. You as ratepayer are not told who the candidates were, or on what grounds the successful applicant was selected over the other three. This is how our team manager for Grenoble was selected, and it looks like this will be the same method for our CEO. Why not use this approach?. It's so much nicer! -Tom.

12/10 After reading comment 7 on this page it has dawned on me that a number of people may not know what a "hyperlink" is (often referred to as simply a link). A Link is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document, another document, or a specified section of another document, that automatically brings the referred information to the user when the navigation element is selected by the user. As such it is similar to a citation in literature, but with the distinction of automatic instant access.

The word "page" at the beginning of this news item is such a link. Not knowing this can cause a user to miss important information within an information space such as our Wiki. -Tom.

10/10 It is good to see more people are now beginning to speak out against the undemocratic and therefore damaging structure of PNZ. The normal iceberg theory of 10/90 applies here. -Tom.

10/10 I have created a Wiki Index page. You may or may not find this useful. For those that do, I will keep it up-to-date for you. I would not be surprised if I receive a medal at the end of this year - for my services to Petanque. Tom.

10/10 On the various pages of this New Zealand Petanque Wiki (NZPW) you may see this line of text: Click on "Edit page" or hit "ALT + E" on your keyboard, and replace this line of text with your views and opinions." Please remember you must log in first for this to work. In order not to exclude anyone, you will always find this line as well: If you do not know our password but would still like to make a comment - email it to tom@bindu-design.co.nz -Tom.

10/10 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 at your club. -Tom.

10/10 I received this selection proposal on 09/10/06. Author and date unknown. -Tom.

09/10 It is interesting that during our National Singles (October 2006) an incident of Article 29 - Boules equidistant from the jack - point 3: "If both teams have boules to play, the team that played the last boule plays again, then the other team, and so on alternately until a boule is holding the point." surfaced again.

The two players (they shall not be named to save them embarrassment) who between them have at least 20 years of tournament experience got the PNZ Arbiter to explain this rule to them! I find it fascinating that people who function quite well in their daily lives and hold jobs of responsibility, are seemingly unable to grasp a set of simple rules. Knowing the basic rules is a prerequisite for any player entering a PNZ national tournament I would have thought. -Tom.

06/10 No page on our WIKI has ever received this much traffic. Within the space of around 48 hours, Seb's page has clocked over 250 visits!!!.

The Wiki site total (all pages) was 483 visits!. Lets hope we can offer some good news soon.-Tom.

A06/10 The ideal would be to disband the PNZ completely. The next lot of administrators do not want to take over a grossly undemocratic constitution and financial commitments to Sparc, etc. It is best to leave the whole sickening legacy behind and start afresh. It has alienated and divided players. I feel we have moved too fast and this has gone at the cost of our game here in NZ. It is time to take a step back and see what it is the NZ Petanque players want. A new start with new people and a new direction to benefit all. Read more on this PAGE. -Tom.

04/10 Seb Merval has written an extensive opinion piece (open-letter) on the state of Petanque in New Zealand. -Tom.

02/10 It has been brought to my attention that PNZ executive members have some kind of self-imposed ban on making contributions to our MPC Blog and NZPW. However, publication of PNZ related material by third parties is not discouraged (in some cases it is encouraged - see item 29/09). This is a bit like the Exclusive Brethren saying we are not allowed to vote, but we will campaign for your political party.

Could it be that our PNZ has been infiltrated by the Exclusive Brethren sect?.

At the next tournament I will be looking out for telltale signs: submissive female players with headscarves.

The irony is that PNZ and WPA at one point removed the MPC Blog link from their websites. -Tom.

29/09 I have received a request from Graeme Burnard to publish his letter of complaint to PNZ on our Wiki. It has an official PNZ reply at the end. - Tom.

28/09 PNZ has put up on their website an excellent PNZ Umpires Handbook. This is well put together and a far cry from the notorious PNZ Player Code of Behaviour. "There has been an excellent response from people interested in umpiring. Neil says "All my exam questions are based on what is in the handbook. Candidates only have to read and memorise". Hard copies of the handbook will be sent to candidates." Please note that this web-based version is a PDF document of around 690kb and well worth a look. -Tom.

27/09 The World Champs stand out this year by the fact that communications to the membership has been poor. You can tell from the frantic search by members trying to find information on the Web. This is in stark contrast with previous years (see also items 20/09 and 20/09A further down this page). But I am happy to wait until Nov.Dec. for the PNZ magazine to be delivered by my posty on her bicycle. Update 17/11: It now turns out that I will have to wait till next year- probably March. Very disappointing.

26/09 During the WPA Singles Championships I asked a person who is an active tournament player "have you been following the World Petanque Championships"? He told me he did not know it was on. He thought it was still to happen, sometime in October. What does this all mean? -Tom.

25/09 “The enemies you make by taking a decided stand generally have more respect for you than the friends you make by being on the fence” -Author unknown

22/09 It appears that a select group of people are receiving SMS progress reports from Grenoble. The two webmasters (Pete from the HB and yours truly from Masterton) who last year made a real effort with bringing you news as it came to hand, are evidently not part of this SMS group. The sad thing is, that both regions (Wairarapa and Hawkes Bay), have players in Grenoble!. Clubs have also done a lot of fund raising: (text from HB website):

21/09 It is great to receive the Excelsior Petanque Club, Oamaru triples tournament report. We would all love to see and hear more from the Mainland Petanque scene. Remember, I am only too happy to set any South Island club up with their own place (six pages) on this New Zealand Petanque Wiki. -Tom.

20/09 Have just noticed that Brian has removed three news items from the PNZ Grenoble World Championship page. One was about the stunning win by our men's team against France3 during a tournament this week. It is possible that many people never got to see these three interesting stories. There is something terribly wrong here. -Tom. Update 21/09: The three news items are now available as a PDF document on the PNZ website. You can read my professional opinion of why PDF is bad, on this page, item 06/09.

20/09A I have discovered quite by accident that news from Grenoble is being published on this PNZ page. This is different from what happened last year (2005) when Graeme Morris emailed a large group of people with extensive news and photos. Before Graeme left, he used the "opt-in" option - people could put themselves on an email list if they wanted to receive his reports (a much more inclusive approach). These reports were published in full on the MPC Blog, the Hawkes Bay website and in abbreviated form on the PNZ site. As a matter of fact, these reports are still neatly archived on the Hawkes Bay website. A different approach this year. I am disappointed that webmasters have not been informed about anything. Do these words spring to mind: play, others, does, well, not, with. In the meantime I will continue driving traffic from our popular MPC Blog to items about Grenoble on the PNZ website. Tonight, our time, the World Petanque Championships will commence. Go well New Zealand. -Tom.

18/09 It is now late evening in France and the two-day tournament our teams entered has finished. I hope it was a good experience and a valuable build-up to the world championships. Our players now have a couple of days to mentally prepare themselves for the big one, starting on Wednesday. Go well. - Tom. PS. Would be great to get some news.

17/09 I have created an image tutorial for you on this page. This tutorial will show you how to put a photo on our Top Shot page. You can find more tutorials by going to our Archive page.

16/09 Dear all. Please make sure you sign in properly when you you write on any of our 170 NZPW pages. Apart from our password, you must also give your name, email address or both. I've put a lot of my time into creating this space for all of us, please respect the Rules. Thanks for doing the right thing. -Tom (NZPW administrator).

15/09 By the time this year is out, Oskar and Danila will be living and working in Auckland. Oskar transferred within his company to a position in Auckland. They will be missed immensely by many in the Wellington region. They are fantastic people, with a great sense of humour. Go well. -Tom.

14/09 The other day I was asked: "what is the purpose of the Wiki". The answer is simple, and you can find it on our Introduction page. -Tom.

13/09 We now have what is called Tags on our Wiki. A tag is a keyword or descriptive term associated with an item. You must be logged in to use Tags. Go to our front page (home page) and scroll down until you see "Show Footer. Click on this link to open it, and scroll down a little. You will see four Tags I have created for us (you can create your own at any time) "selection" "news" "results" and "PNZ executive". By clicking on one of these Tags you will be taken to a new page with links to pages associated with the Tag. In other words, if you click on the Tag "results" you will be taken to a page with three links that have tournament results. Please remember that you will always see a link to the front page (home page) amongst the results as well (just ignore that one). You can read more about Tags here at Wikipedia.

12/09 If you think you can use these tacky faces, please do.

Just put the code at the and of a sentence - like so:

Of course you need to be logged in, and in edit mode in order to cut and paste the line of code. If you do not understand what "cut and paste" means, simply go to this useful tutorial. Have "fun". -Tom.

09/09 Ours Not To Reason Why. The New Zealand team has left for France today. I am surprised and disappointed that we have not seen an itinerary. This is all part of the build-up and excitement. It should be about promotion and marketing. It would also be a way of getting people onboard. I have attempted to do some promotion in a small way on our MPC Blogwith details about the hotel and Grenoble weather records. We just have to wait and see, it seems. Apparently Liz Rocks is going to text Graeme Morris and he in turn is going to forward these text messages to me - to put on our Blog. It is actually quite simple for Liz to text directly to a Blog and the text message automatically appears on that Blog as a post. I better not ask any questions about news strategies - remember what happened last time I asked. -Tom. Update 12/09: The New Zealand World Championship Teams Programme has tonight been put up on the PNZ website.

06/09 PDF: I am getting concerned about the increasing number of page conversions (HTML to PDF) on the PNZ website. If you look at the Home page of the PNZ site, you can see just how many there are. I am concerned as this is developing into an accessibility problem for members. Studies show that usability and accessibility are two critical factors in getting return visitors to a site. PDF in the right situation is fine - tournament entry forms are a good example of the "right situation". To use PDF as an alternative or substitute for HTML documents brings a host of user difficulties with it, and should be avoided as much as possible.

One of the many problems is that the user must have and use a "reader" to view a web-based PDF document thereby forcing the user to work with two computer applications just to see one ducument: (a browser and a reader - on some systems a third application sometimes known as a "download manager" can be involved as well!). The point is: why not simply leave 99.9% of all web-based documents as HTML? (a good example apart from this Wiki, is the WPA website). This would make it simple and easy for all. Some browsers (Safari and Firefox) can display PDF documents within their browser windows, but this brings another set of problems, and I will write about these some other time. -Tom. "Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done." -Josh Billings

Poll image above was taken from MPC Blog on 05/01/07

05/09 I am looking for a singles partner. Must have excellent shooting ability. Applicants with a shooting success rate of less than 95% will not be short-listed for an interview. The successful applicant will be well groomed, have a proven ability to out-stare opponents, and have at least one complete set of boules. Players who fall to pieces the minute they are 13 points behind, need not apply. As our coach is from East Africa, it goes without saying that your command of Swahili must be of a sufficient standard. Knowledge of the Comoro dialect will be an advantage. All applicants will be asked to recite some East African poetry (in Swahili) during the interview. This is a great opportunity for an up and coming player wanting to get better at singles. Forward your credentials including verifiable playing (tournament) statistics to me as soon as possible as I would like to enter a singles team to the W.S. (World Singles) in Mozambique, 2007. All travelling, food and accommodation cost will be paid for by the government of Nigeria. I look forward to receiving your application. No time wasters please. -Tom.

04/09 Our Google Street Maps have been well received. Another great (if not better) street map source would have to be the brand new Trademe Maps. This Trademe Map is for use within NZ only. -Tom.

31/08 Please read the proposal on this page and provide input by leaving a comment. It has been up since July 26 and so far only one person has made a comment. The proposal is: “That the current National Selection Policy for national representative teams be replaced by a proposed National Qualification Policy" -Tom.

29/08 Claire Wilson is about to take off to Singapore to represent New Zealand (and our MPC of course) in an international Petanque tournament. The entire NZ team of Roberta Campbell, Joanne Evans, Claire Wilson, Andrew Joe, David Lippard and Andre Noel will be leaving our shores any day now. Good luck to you all. Two of our club members and supporters are already in Singapore. Joan and Graeme have flown ahead to look at the suitability of shops, cafes and restaurants, etc. - someone has to do it. I hope Joan and Graeme did not hear the piece on the radio (National) the other day about the water crisis in Singapore. With water supply contracts from Malaysia not renewed, Singapore is actively converting sewerage to drinking water. Yes, you are reading this right. This is difficult concept for people living in NZ, that's for sure!. My advise is to stick to bottled water and Coca-Cola, etc. Then again, how can we be sure about the water used in these local commercial produ... ....Oh stop it!! Read Graeme's impressions on this PAGE. -Tom.

28/08 Tip: When you are in "edit mode", give yourself more room by clicking on "Hide hints". Remember, less is more! -Tom.

27/08 It is nice that the large and high traffic urban watchdog Blog has mentioned our Wiki. This Blog is run by Tom Beard and is well respected. Tom does not hesitate to speak out on matters he believes need comment. I have been accused in a letter from PNZ, of "waging a vendetta against PNZ" (simply because I document events and comments on our Blog or Wiki - you can see two examples here and here). We are lucky, people such as Tom Beard or cartoonist Tom Scott are not labouring on American style road gangs, or locked up in solitary confinement - just for speaking out. Thank God for free-speech and watchdogs!. -Tom. Update 16/09: Tom Beard was today interviewed by Kim Hill on the radio (Saturday Morning). I have the podcast - if anyone is interested.

25/08 This week I emailed this message to 22 people throughout NZ:

At 12 noon today these are the results to the "test reminder":

8 no, 2 maybe, 12 haven't responded.

The relatively low response rate could be because of the rather difficult instructions (the instruction to Cut and Paste). Usability studies have shown that many computer users do not understand the instruction to "Cut and Paste something". I have therefore set this tutorial page up for those who would like to refresh their memories. -Tom.

PS. The "test reminder" was an invitation to the Kapiti Anniversary Dinner of 25/8/2006. See our calendar.

24/08 More calendar stuff. Another useful thing you can do is create a calendar with only tournaments you are going to, or are seriously considering. You can create as many calendars within your Google calendar as you like. It's simple to make a new one and give it a name (maybe "My Tournaments") and copy those tournaments you want to show, into your new calendar. The various calendars are accessible from a convenient spot on the left of your Google calendar. You can turn these on or off. If you have created many calendars such as "Work" School" "Birthdays", etc. it can become difficult to see what is happening, so it is a good idea to turn on only those calendar you want to see. By turning two calendars on ("Petanque" and "Birthdays"), you can see if a Petanque event will clash with a birthday party. -Tom.

23/08 If you have your own Google Calendar you can save all events from this NZPW Calendar to your own by simply clicking on the button below. A nice thing you can do once you have your own (free) Google calendar is search for tournaments. Type in "Napier" to instantly see all known events in HB during 2006 and 2007!.

19/08 You can read the New Zealand 2006 World Petanque Championships Player Profiles here. - Tom.

18/08 Our NZPW website now has some Petanque Video Clips for you to look at. -Tom.

17/08 PNZ received 20 replies to their request for selection process feedback. See (selection process feedback summary this is a PDF file). from the NZ Petanque membership. Considering we have 60 players on the national selection list and at least 1200 affiliated members this is a disappointing result. It is not easy for PNZ to formulate policies and get it right, if people are not showing any interest. It's no good moaning if we are not prepared to provide input. Twenty replies with 6 of these from players not on the selection list. This leaves only 14 replies from the 60 players that had put their name forward for selection. PNZ no doubt will be looking for some kind of mandate to make changes, but with only 20 replies this is going to be difficult. "There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference" -Juan Montalvo. -Tom.

17/08 Got an email from a dear friend in Holland:

"Hello Tom,

Last weekend I was half and half expecting the two of you here in Maastricht, because there was, on the big square in the centre of the city, a big, three day, international jeu-de-boule tournament. It looked like 50 playing fields and many balls were flying around. But I guess that you cancelled out because of the high security-alert in aviation around the world. Well, next time (year) better??? Luckily August is a lot cooler then July."

"Maastricht received city rights in 1204" -Tom.

16/08 If you are not sure how the get to your next tournament, use a map. I have made a page with 27 links to maps you may want to look up before you leave home. At the bottom of the same page is a link to a Driving Distance Chart - so you can ask the tournament organisers for petrol vouchers;-) Look for the link "Google Petanque Maps" in the right-hand column on this page (Side Bar). These Google map links will bring you to a map of your choice. I will put them in alphabetical order soon. PS. Individual maps are also accessible from our events calendar. -Tom.

11/08 It is good to see a summary of the the PNZ selection process survey up so quickly. It will be interesting to see if PNZ is going with a complete reversal, or continue with an adapted version of what we have now.

PS. From time to time you may find that links from this Wiki to PNZ web pages do not work. The PNZ webmaster is forever changing URLs, and I am having quite a time keeping up with it all. The link address above was changed today - I just happened to notice. When this happens, all links to selection process survey (three on the NZPW site and one on the MPC Blog) are dead. I have corrected these links to accommodate this latest URL change. Cheers from your faithful servant. -Tom. Update 26/08: The link has changed again!. I now give up. - Tom.

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