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03/01 My Wish for You in 2008

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts. May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet of $100 bills. May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips! May you always Carreau and may you win all your games! May your clothes smell of success like smoking tyres and may happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be those of joy. May the problems you had forget your home address! In simple words ............

May 2008 be the best year of your life!!! -Barbara Johnston.

30/12 I have always appreciated France and "la vie Francaise". Indeed the purchase by my wife Jenny of a set of petanque boules, during one of many visits to France during the 1980’s whilst I was working and studying in England, lead me to import the game into New Zealand in the early 90’s. -Cam Calder. read more>>>

17/12 PNZ has recently received correspondence from the French team informing PNZ that their dates for the NZ visit have changed. The revised dates essentially cut out three days and after consultation with the central region, PNZ has decided to cut out this leg of the visit altogether and leave Auckland and Wellington region as the main visiting regions. See Itinerary. -Tom.

14/12 "The Masterton Petanque Club have achieved a major coup with the news that three French players with a remarkable 19 world titles between them will be playing at their Queen Elizabeth Park headquarters in Masterton on January 29. Phillipe Quintais, Phillipe Suchaud and Bruno Rocher are to contest the New Zealand open championships in Auckland on January 26 and 27 and will be heading to Masterton after the completion of their commitments there...." Read more on this PAGE. -Tom.

11/12 This year has almost come to an end and next year looks like a great petanque year if the endless string of positive reports, comments and image contributions on our Blog is anything to go by. It shows that people just want the best for our players and our game. Lets finish with these words from Dawn Gardner: "We can all learn from past mistakes. Let us go forward in this new year 2008 - play our best, and enjoy the wonderful game of Petanque." (quoted text taken from this PAGE. Update: 21/12/07: This string of positive reports has now been broken by PNZ executive member Andy Gilbert, with his very negative and sarcastic remakes on this PAGE. -Tom.

10/12 The Wellington Team for the Hawkes Bay Challenge. "We started the match well by winning 4 of the singles matches. Each match was worth 2 points and we went into the doubles round 8 – 4 ahead.

The doubles matches were worth 3 points each so it was possible for Hawkes Bay to overhaul us in this round. Wellington won 2 of these matches which extended our lead to 14 – 7. This was an almost identical scenario to the previous year. Hawkes Bay had to win 3 of the remaining 4 triples matches while Wellington had to win 2 of the matches.

The Wellington Team of Sebastien, Enoka and Myles lost their first......" Read full report.

03/12 I am the lucky owner of a new CD by Chris Priestley (Chris is a well known petanque player living in Auckland). The title is "Mazengarb Priestly & Taylor".

It's absolutely fantastic and I highly recommend it. It has one beautiful and complex instrumental arrangement by Mazengarb and Priestley "Choplin Bridge" that I particularly like. What all Chris's CDs have in common is the clarity and richness of sound - a warm crisp golden sound is the way I would describe it. Chris does all his recording in the same Braeburn Studio in Wellington. Listening to the sound quality I can understand why he comes all this way. Thanks for the music Chris, Mark and Kristen. -Tom.

13/11 I was told by the arbiter at the NZ Double that I was not allowed the wear sandals. I had forgotten about this daft rule, cooked up by PNZ. "PNZ policy for National Tournaments is that open-toed shoes, sandals or jandals are not acceptable footwear."

The above statement from PNZ is supposedly based on health and safety grounds. Ironically many petanque players injure themselves through sunburn each year (we all know that accumulative sunburns can lead to cancer). Is PNZ concerned about this - it seems not.

PNZ instead is concerned about a perceived health and safety issue which simply does not exists. I have been active as a player since 1994 and do not know of a single petanque player who has sustained a minor or major injury from a boule dropping on toes. The fact this simply does not happen is the reason no other petanque club or body in NZ has adopted the prevention measures of this precieved health and safety issue (boule falling on toe). I am not a civil libertarian, but I like to be responsible for my own well-being during tournaments. Is the real reason for the above PNZ statement perhaps to prevent players from "lowering the tone" of PNZ events with their sandals and jandals?. Is this the real reason that sandals and jandals are not "acceptable footwear?". -Tom.

PS. The Australians go one further with a restriction on high heels: "No high heel shoes permitted." I love it.

PPS. See also this health and safety statement from the Société Internationale des Pratiquants de Petanquisme et Jeux Alliés (SIPPJA), or More Rules.

29/10 I have strong reservations about holding our national tournaments in out of the way places. This year our national doubles will be played in Levin. I believe it should be held in Wellington. If you live and work in Auckland or Dunedin you can hop on a cheap flight after work on a Friday (early evening), take a short shuttle trip and before you can say "petanque", you are tucked up in bed with a hot cocoa and your laptop. You will start the day refreshed, win the tournament, and if you do your calculations you will have saved money to boot. -Tom.

25/10 I propose that we do away with stating which club a player belongs to (or which club he/she has registered under) on tournament player lists. A good number of players belong to more than one club. For the person creating the list it's actually a lot of extra work. This is the reason I have never included club names, or silly team names in lists I have put up on the Web - Midwinter Doubles and WBS. This may be important for newspaper results, but for a simple player list it isn't in my view. I am sure we all agree it is fantastic that these lists are now made available. Players really appreciate seeing these lists. Lets keep it easy for our web masters. -Tom.

24/10 "...Hatfield, Hertfordshire-based Dave Ciano, former international petanque player, former manager of the British Petanque team and current member of Welwyn Club de Petanque in England, as well as a member of the Cockle Bay Petanque Club in NZ, is organising a Petanque competition on Saturday 17 November 2007 at the Cockle Bay club with the full support of the club...." Read the full press release.

24/09 Some of you may have noticed that our events calendar has become more usable. You can now click on events to see the details. -Tom.

19/09 The recent attack on our Blog (brought about by this post), and the subsequent settling of the dust has shown more than ever the importance of an independent information space within our Petanque community. Our NZPC Blog will remain an independent platform free of cliquey politics. I and others will (at the risk of being "anti establishment") continue to ask the hard questions and give praise where praise is due. -Tom.

18/09 I am pleased to announce that the Hawkes Bay region has a new web presents within our Wiki. We all know the great work (pioneering work) done by Peter Ball for Welilngton and later for the Hawkes Bay. But web work does require specialist knowledge and some people like working with different sets of code such as" HTML tables" or "HTML CSS" or a mix of these two. Enter Wiki - no special skills, code or tools required. No longer the reliance on the one single specialist. Now anyone can maintain web pages. It allows us to work together and share the load, whilst at the same time foster trust and cooperation. It is thanks to the generous sponsorship from Dr. Cam Calder and Boules to You that this is a free service to all (Cam is a PNZ life member). All good stuff. -Tom.

13/09 It is probably today that our NZ representative are heading to Singapore and on to Pattaya. No one knows, there is complete silence from our governing body PNZ. I personally feel that it is immaterial whether individuals have conveyed private messages of good luck to the team. Not wanting to sound anti establishment, I do think there should have been a strong public message of support from PNZ.

We are lucky an affiliated member (Graeme Burnard) had the foresight to at least publicly acknowledge our players and wish them well.

A long time ago I created these 15 pages for the purpose of keeping the membership informed. These pages do not rely on a webmaster, as they are wiki based and as such can be updated by any person (without any special tools or knowledge) from any location on our planet. When will PNZ learn the basics about P.R., and keep the membership informed? -Tom.

11/09 Spammer in our midst

A letter from Joanne Evans

A large scale attack on me as a person and our Blog

An email from Dirk Winnie

08/09 I am aghast at the nasty viciousness of their very personal attack on me. This was definitely a premeditated and coordinated attack.

"I wonder if we would be more successful in promoting the game of Petanque if we addressed the issues rather than attacking individuals." taken from this page -Tom.

06/09 Cockle Bay Petanque Wine Doubles Saturday Nov. 17

04/09 There are people who do not like our NZPC Blog. Those people would like me to run our Blog as a free-for-all, without any editorial guidance or restrictions - all this under the "freedom of speech" banner. They know as well as I do that this would certainly spell the instant demise of this Blog. Is this what we/they want?. I challenge anyone to show me a Blog type website that runs totally without any editorial rules or restrictions.

Unfortunately there are only a handful of people that take an active part on our Blog: me, Margret, Liz and Graeme B - no one really participates. The fact that we have hardly anyone providing input in the form of comments to add to a debate makes it especially puzzling to see some people now wound up in the "democratic process" in which they do not participate.

17/08 On what date did PNZ register our World team?. What was the outcome of the negotiations with FIPJP (Fédération Internationale de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal) regarding the unorthodox reserve strategy?. How long before we, the members, are told?. -Tom.

12/08 The PNZ website is down again - has been all morning. This seems to happen rather a lot. Maybe it's time to move the site to a more reliable server. Still no luck at 5pm.-Tom.

28/07 I propose a one way ticket to Harare, flying TAM, with stopover in Sau Paulo. Can anyone organise that? -Seb.

24/07 From time to time the Wiki people (the people who run this Wiki on the server in the US) conduct surveys. This has proven to be confusing for some of us trying to login. Please note, it is not me asking you to take a survey. There is always the option of clicking on "I do not want to take the survey" or something to that effect. Remember, if you have difficulty putting something on our Wiki - email it to me, your tireless servant. -Tom.

17/07 Yeah, Tom, sorry, can't help it!

The sweet smell of victory mixed with the memories of our work sessions together make me loose my hardly earned selfcontrol, and my members are rising out of hand! To fix that, I do what you taught me, I think of Roger and Tina..............................at the world champs. Thanks for noticing, so-called coach! They are not calling you eagle-eye for nothing. Ahah! Seb.

17/07 Hi Seb,

Just been looking at this photo and noticed you are still raising your right heel by about 6 mm too high. Remember all the sessions we had last year trying to remedy this problem.

Make sure you keep working on this, OK?.

Anyway, congratulations on winning in Wellington! -Tom.

13/07 Why is Liz Rocks still on the Executive Structure Flowchart?. Update 17/07: Liz's name was removed from the flowchart this evening. -Tom.

12/07 Hey Tom, nice to have you back on board. We were getting bored here. -Seb.

12/07 It is interesting to see (Blog posting "Pattaya Groundwork") that Japan has a totally different attitude towards the 4th player for their Pattaya world team. Here in New Zealand the 4th player, it seems, (no one has ever given a sensible explanation) is merely surplus to requirements -Tom.

11/07 Our Wiki has today reached 400 pages!. This includes the 15 pages set aside for our worlds team. -Tom.

05/07

15/06 The extend of the mishandling by PNZ of the 4th player issue is slowly emerging. I want everyone to understand that we would all be none the wiser if it was not for the ability to inform the membership through the Web. Only a few years ago all this would have gone unnoticed. A few postal letters of complaint to PNZ - followed by a few "thank you for your letter, we will look into it", would have been the end of it.

In an attempt to salvage the situation we have seen our CEO publish ill considered and ill worded material on the Web. This has drawn a sharp response from members who are intelligent and not easily bamboozled.

This "new" digital medium is seen by some as a curse, but most of us know it is a good thing. We all have to be more aware of what we do and say. We have to be more open, cooperative, inclusive, accommodating and above all we have to be honest with each-other. Long-term, this is going to be good and healthy for our small, but great Petanque community. -Tom.

13/06 The saga of the 4th player will continue until the PNZ executive puts their hand up and amits they got it wrong. They should have said no to the team as soon as they were asked. Not yes, and then change their minds when the players started to make noises of dissent.

You can change the captain of a ship, but if the crew stays the same you will tend to get the same results and decisions that you have had in the past and we all know that they have not had a good track record. -Myles.

13/06 Replies to CEO June 07 Newsletter. -Tom.

12/06 Dear Pétanque Friends from NZ

Check our new homepage http://www.pcz.ch Maybe a NZ-Team is prepared for a trip to Zurich ?! Greetings from Switzerland Martin Winter. President of the Grand Prix International de Zurich. -SJ

08/06 Good Morning Today and over the last few months i have read and participated in the comments that have been floating around on the blog spot and PNZ web site. I feel that both these sites have the ability to promote the game in a very positive way and communicate to the larger petanque community.

But this will only happen if personalities are put aside and we all work for the betterment of the game. I agree with Tom, it is great to see a CEO corner on the site and i like the first comment (well done Bryan). I now call for you to support our teams to travel to the world cup and Singapore. I'm personally pledgeing $100 dollars towards this and if i can get half the community to contribute $10 then this will help raise $7000 (700 people * $10). Come on people! Lets show everyone that we are adults and put our differences aside - acknowledge that things have gone before and move on. If you want to help the team - follow the directions on the PNZ web site. -Myles

P.S. Communication is the way forward.

08/06 CEO Newsletter. It is fantastic that my suggestion for a CEO Newsletter has now become a reality. It shows how valuable our Discussion Documents really are.

It is nice that our NZPC Blog gets a mention in Bryan's Newsletter, but why does he keep referring to it as "the so-called 'NZ Petanque Club' blog site". No one says "the so-called Petanque New Zealand website" or "the so-called Wellington Petanque Association website" - a bit strange. -Tom.

04/06 It was rather poor of Brian Smith to behave like a child when it came to the official photographs. He turned his face away because it was me taking the photograph. This is inappropriate behaviour towards the host club MPC. This is not the kind of behaviour one would expect from a member of the PNZ executive. Brian obviously has issues he needs to work on.

None of the other first placegetters had a problem with me taking their photographs. -Tom.

29/05 There seems to be some debate about whether it was morally and ethically appropriate for Liz to post "To the Team". It is important to understand that despite the title, it was not specifically addressed to the individual members of the team only, it was what is known as an "Open Letter". "An Open Letter is a letter, often critical, addressed to a particular person or group of people but intended for publication." (taken from Oxford dictionary). This is the reason why I as editor allowed the publication of this Open Letter. So this is not a private letter that has somehow appeared on the Web. You may not like what it says, but that is another issue. -Tom.

29/05 It is interesting that Liz Rocks is still on the Executive Structure. Update 01/06: She has now been removed, together with the nice flowchart. -Tom.

29/05 Maurice, this is the last thing I am going to say - it is time the people involved voiced their opinion, but could it be that the answer came back as "YES". Also, you'll find that the truth is always in the detail. -Tom.

PS. I am sorry your ten year old finds this topic too long. Good thing he/she was not visiting our Blog or Wiki last year (2006).

28/05 I'm confused, the latest offering on the blog just confirmed for me that the process for selection as outlined on the PNZ website is still current and being followed.

The question was asked by the team and the answer came back as "No". It seems to me that the team is being criticised because they asked the question. To me, this is unfair. If you don't ask you don't get. I don't need to know all the details of who did what and when, the outcome is still the same. If, as of today, the process as outlined originally by PNZ on the website is still being followed by the PNZ and by the team, - what's with all the fuss? The worst thing thing that the PNZ could be criticised of IMO - is taking the scenic route to get to the answer that followed the process - but they got there in the end.

I want to support the team and see support for the team. I really don't want to see from now until September, a weekly conspiracy column being posted around the latest "development as it comes to hand".

In the words of my 10 year old, "this topic is getting too loooong Dad".

Go Ron, Muzz and Simon.

Cheers

Maurice

28/05 Graeme, the question in my mind is this: if the team has suffered, is this because of the Open Letter or because of the mishandling of the process by PNZ (the chicken and the egg).

Why now? I do not know, but it could have something to do with the endless silence by PNZ. Maybe Liz had the decency to wait and give PNZ an opportunity to explain what happened.

I can assure you that it is factually correct - despite of what your sources tell you. Don’t forget that Liz’s resignation was formally accepted by the Executive on the 05/05/07. Up until that time she was included in all correspondence from the Executive.

I think we need to clear the air before we can all support our team. We certainly should not fight among ourselves. PNZ needs to come forward and explain the situation to the stakeholders. -Tom.

28/05 Tom, my criticism of Liz was firstly because I do not believe that the blog was the appropraite place for her original "letter to the team". This should have been directed to the team and not aired in public. It has not done the team any good whatsoever. Secondly, why, now, after 10 days or so does she come out with all this stuff about the process when everything had died down. My sources tell me that it is not all factually correct as it happens. I am now trying to conentrate on supporting our national team - something Mrs Rocks should be doing as well as our recently departed national selector.

Graeme B

28/05 I must say, I am really surprised at Graeme's assertion of "mischief making" in response to "For those who are still interested in the process the following is a synopsis" on our NZPC Blog.

Why is it that we always seem to attack the one who is providing the news or information ("shoot the messenger"). It usually means we do not like the information or news. I thought the point was quite clear: listing the events as they happened. I would also have preferred it came from PNZ, but to attack Liz....., I just don't get it. -Tom.

25/05 Comment regarding that P.N.Z WOULD THEY BEND THE RULES FOR MY TEAM .

Definitely NOT there is no way they would of done that for my TEAM if my team won !!.....and yes they done it again only this time it's huge ,i don't know if there going to come forward to admit that they made a very big mistake .

Georgio Vakauta

24/05 It is hard to believe that we've still haven't heard a sound or murmur from PNZ about the selection process. -Tom.

20/05 The acknowledgement of the resignation from the PNZ executive of Liz Rocks appeared on the PNZ website today. -Tom.

18/05 A great wrong has been committed by PNZ. PNZ has broken its own 2007 selection rules. Murray Porter, had advised Bryan Wells that the fourth player will not be selected from the available players who reached the top 4 teams, but a player who was a member of a team knocked out in the quarter-finals (ie the team finished in 5 - 8 position. This player was David Lippard. Surely this is bending the rules. Would PNZ have agreed to bend the rules for the team of Georgio?.

This 4th player debacle is being diverted to whether the team has a right to chose. They have every right. The question is; what happened to cause a number of people to complain about PNZ not following the process. One only has to read Claire's comment on this page: "....and I had great hope that as part of that we were going to have criteria set that would be held to. Yet at the first hurdle it would appear that manipulation has occurred which has again caused the criteria to be overriden."

It seems that PNZ had initially committed the bending of the rules. Wrong decisions, breakdown in communications and disagreements (this was described to me yesterday as "hiccups"). I have no problem with that - I make mistakes on a daily basis. What I have a problem with is that PNZ is not coming clean by simply saying it's our mistake, we apologise for what happened.

The suppression of the truth breaths a lot of anger and frustration. This can lead to all sorts of consequences. To prevent this, it is always a good idea to front up and say, hey we made a mistake.

I do not think that people who question the process are killing "the relationships that this great game can provide". I also know that it is easy to say "forget the past and move on." What is the past, is it last year or last week?. Forgetting the past is not easy for those who are directly effected by what they perceive as an injustice. It is not right for Maurice to dismiss grievances people may have about the process as merely a "side show - and a minor one at that". I am not affected by any of this, I would be lucky to get into the Bowl. I am just trying to be objective. Questioning processes was perfectly ok last year, it is not this year it seems.

I firmly believe that people who question a process are not "knockers" nor should it imply that they do not support the team or hold the members of the team in low regard. For David Lippard to say: “They know who they are, as do we” is nothing less than a threat.

David states: "Each member of the team is a successful person outside of the game of Petanque." What on earth does this mean??. I do not know of a single NZ Petanque player who is not a successful person outside of the game.

It is a shame that David Lippard and others did not inform PNZ that it would be much better if the winning team can choose whoever they liked. It is a shame that PNZ did not consult with highly experienced people within our game, before they wrote the conditions. It is a shame that PNZ has not had the courage to take ownership and say sorry to the New Zealand Petanque membership.

There never was "the benefit of hindsight". This year selection criteria and selection of a fourth player (if required) was as clear as clear can be. "the benefit of hindsight" never came into it. How could PNZ be persuaded to depart from what was so simple and clear. We are still waiting for a satisfactory explanation.

I find it heartening that people are beginning to turn to what is really at stake here; the "process" and the inability of PNZ to stand up and take ownership. This is not about the team..

Dirk, I would love it if you could explain to me what you mean by: "the unintended consequences of the processes ". -Tom.

Tom,

I guess what I mean by unintended consequence, and maybe I didn't use the right term but, is that I don't think the PNZ at the time gave themselves the breathing space to think through the ramifications of their actions. I do believe that the PNZ acted sincerely in what they believed was the best interests of all concerned. There was a groundswell of opinion, which, as you may recall I opposed, to get rid of selection. The PNZ put in a process to appease players. I would suggest this was done with indecent haste.

Dirk.

Dirk,

Murray Porter was at the meeting when the protocols where drawn up. You say: "think through the ramifications of their actions." Dirk, there where no ramifications to be considered. The protocols and conditions have been up on the Web for months. Why is it that we only now (after the tournament) find "mistakes" in it. We have extremely competent people in New Zealand - none of these had a problem with the simple and straightforward protocols. There would have been plenty of time to make changes, up to the triples entries being received. -Tom.

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