October 2007

Season 2007 was not the best as far as results are concerned but I believe that members enjoyed their bowls in spite of the moderate results. Sadly, we are once again relegated to division two in the Hovingham League but I am quite sure that we will bounce right back to the top flight as we always seem to do. The other leagues were much the same as usual, with Sessay finishing in mid-to-low positions but giving as many games to members as they wanted.

One good point to note about 2007 is that we attracted some new blood into the club and I would like to say what a pleasure it was to welcome Geoffrey Page and Melissa Clark into our midst. I hope they both enjoyed their experience and will continue in membership for many years to come. At just nine years of age when she first joined, it was particularly pleasing to see Melissa play in a couple of matches and I for one look forward to charting her progress. And how’s this for a lesson in how to deliver a wood –

As I said at the time, when she plays for England, this will be the first picture to go into her scrap-book!

Congratulations to all our trophy winners this year and a special word for Albert Jeffray, who reached the final of the JSW singles competition. Albert claimed some excellent scalps on his way to the final but couldn’t quite keep the momentum going and ended runner-up. Albert was also successful in winning two of our own club competitions. A particular mention also to Pat Bee who won no fewer than three singles and two pairs competitions at club level. As Ann Thompson said on the day, “Pat simply slipped into automatic pilot and got on with it!” Pat also got to the semi-final of the Champion of Champions, the semi-final of the County Pairs with Marie Scoby-Smith and the final of the Benevolent triples with Ann Thompson and Margaret Watkinson. Well done to all of them!

Apart from our poor performance on then green, the biggest disappointment of the season was our inability to run our usual Whistle-Stop day. As well as being sad for the players who would have had a good day’s bowling, it also deprived the club of much needed finance. I will try once more next season but Whistle-Stops generally seem to have passed their sell-by date so we will have to hope for the best.

In view of the forgoing, it is a good job that we once again attracted County competitions to Sessay and this year we were pleased to welcome the Yorkshire Ladies for their “May Bowl”, Lincolnshire v Durham in the John’s Trophy and Yorkshire v both Durham and Northumberland in the Northern Counties. We also put on the County Triples knock-outs. As well as the honour of staging such matches, it also brings in much needed cash to the club and these games made us a profit of almost £650. This is due to the hard work put in by our lady caterers and we really do owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

Yorks v Northumberland, August 24th

Yorks v Durham, June 8th

John’s Trophy, July 10^th

The green has not been without its problems once more, this time the presence of moss has been apparent – we are doing all we can to eliminate this and hopefully next season will see an improvement.

Finally, my thanks to all club members for their help and support during a difficult season. I wish you all a good winter and look forward eagerly to 2008

April 2007

The new 2007 season is now upon us, our green being opened for play on Thursday April 12^th. The official opening of the season is on Sunday April 22^nd with our usual get-together for the Marshall Cup competition, followed by tea in the pavilion.

The green has wintered well apart from an above average incidence of moss – this is causing the green-keeper some worries but all should be well by the beginning of May.

Once again we have been honoured to have two county games awarded to Sessay this year. We will be hosting Yorkshire versus Durham on Friday June 8th and Yorkshire versus Northumberland on Friday August 24^th. In addition we have the YCWBA "May Bowl" here on Wednesday May 9^th as well as various county knock-out competitions.

October 2006

The 2006 season has now drawn to a close and for Sessay it has been a good one.

Our Hovingham League team finished top of the second division and gained promotion once again to the first. This is not unusual but we have a nasty habit of not remaining in the top flight for long. This time we hope to stay with the elite group for a few more seasons.

In the JSW league we finished fourth after a promising run but failed to maintain our form at the very end of the season. Nevertheless, fourth is a creditable performance.

Out other two league positions were more modest but we try to give as many matches to as many players as possible so results become less important.

We were delighted once again to host county matches on the green, this year were allocated the County "Get-together" and two county games against Derbyshire and Cumbria. Later on we were also asked to take the friendly against Nottinghamshire. We were delighted with the feedback from these matches - both the green and the catering facilities were highly praised.

The new pavilion is now fully operational with both water and electricity connected and once again it has received complimentary comments from visitors to the club.

The green has now been "Put to bed" for the winter but of course work on it will continue with mowing, spiking, fertilising and general winter maintenance - work done during this period sets the scene for next season.

Yorkshire v Derbyshire. May 25th 2006	Yorkshire v Cumbria. June 2nd 2006
Yorkshire v Notts. July 18th 2006

April 2006

As we approach the 2006 season the weather becomes an important factor. The winter has been good inasmuch as we have had some good hard frosts to kill off many of the bugs. However we now have rather too much moisture so getting onto the green to prepare for bowling is going to be difficult -- green keepers are never satisfied! Nonetheless, we fully anticipate all being in good order for our opening day on Sunday April 23rd.

Once again we are pleased that the Yorkshire County Ladies are gracing us with their presence this year. Our first encounter will be the County get-together on Friday April 28th and this will be followed with a County Friendly Match against Derbyshire on Thursday May 25th. Hot on the heels of that, on Friday June 2nd we are staging a full county game against Cumbria and the usual county knock-out games will be played throughout the season. In addition to county matches, we are also going to be busy with our usual league games in the Hovingham, JSW, Galtres, EBRL and Hambleton Mini Leagues so the green will be fully occupied once more.

The winter has been spent to good effect off the green as well as on it. We have now installed electricity and water to the new pavilion so this facility is now fully operational and a credit to all those members who have worked hard to complete this most important project.

October 2005

The season is now over and we have had mixed results in our various league campaigns but the main thing is that everyone has enjoyed their bowls.

Once again we were honoured to host another county game when the Ladies of Yorkshire took on Lancashire in June and we also hosted the May Bowl which is the traditional curtain raiser for the Yorkshire Ladies teams.

Our best result of the season was the success of our three ladies shown in the picture. Pat Bee, Ann Thompson and Margaret Watkinson won the Yorkshire section of the Benevolent Triples competition and received their trophies at the YCWBA Annual Lunch in York. Well done girls!

The picture shows Pat, Ann and Margaret with their Yorkshire Trophies

Our Finals Day was once again a great success, good weather prevailed and we managed some new names on the trophies - together with some usual ones!

The green has now been “Put to bed” for the winter and is looking in good shape - lets hope the forthcoming season is good to us and causes no serious damage.

We now look forward to 2006 with anticipation and hope it proves to as enjoyable as 2005.

Winter Well!