Your local Little Miss Nosy gets stuck in once again on official club business…
By Katie Garner
With matches commencing left, right and centre and school halls being packed to the rafters on a weekly basis with squeaky shoed, racket swinging wonders, it’s fair to say that the official badminton season is well and truly under way. With this in mind, your loyal league committee are also picking up the pace with their regular update meetings to ensure the smooth running of events and fixtures. Now gathering in the community hall that is the home of Harold Hill, we met up this week to see how things were developing so far.
League Website:
The handy dandy league website is now officially up and running, although it is still being developed in terms of discovering what content members actually want to have on there. Our chairman has written up the league rules so that they can presently be posted, which will be a useful reference point for anyone involved in matches against other clubs. Also, the league match secretaries will also be ensuring that up to date results will be available on a regular basis so that everyone will be able to see their current table status simply. This means no more emailing out and printing off a multitude of paperwork to show your club – all can be easily viewed in a few clicks online. Results will be updated on an ad hoc basis depending on the fixtures coming in, so please check regularly if you want your most up to date standings. On the whole though, there has been a very positive response to the site, which I am sure will be become a fantastic data source for the league.
Multiple Team Confusion:
Again the league is still having difficulties with clubs who enter more than one squad for the various divisions. Understandably it can be confusing if you have say three different men’s teams across the four divisions, but it is vitally important that clubs clearly state which squad they are from when sending in results. Our long suffering match secretary is having a whale of a time playing jigsaw with some of the result forms that are not stating which squad from the club played and which division they played in. Please bear this in mind otherwise you take the chance of your results being recorded incorrectly.
While we are on the topic of the score sheets, the new signature system seems to be working well, although not all members seem to have gasped how to fill the form out correctly. In the table where you write down your names, there is a second column so that players can add their signature right next to where they have written their name. This is done so that each player has a signature on record so that we can eliminate the cheating saga that tarnished last season. If players just all sign the sheet at the bottom this defeats the point of having the signature procedure in place as we still don’t know who is who. Please can all squad captain ensure that every players signs against their name in the provided column. An example, filled out score sheet was circulated by the match secretary so that this would be understood, but if it is not clear enough, please let me know and I would be more than happy to show you face to face.
Wychelm So Far:
To be honest, the season has only just started, so the results at this stage don’t always hold much significance, however I’ll still give you the general update. Our Men’s team who are taking on Division Four are currently placed 3rd out of five clubs playing, which is a great way to kick off the season. It has been noted that Barking, who play in this division, have yellow walls in their sports hall which makes it rather tricky to spot the shuttle, so please can players bear this in mind when visiting this club.
Our Mixed team have only had one game so far in Division Two, however we are top of the leader board at the moment after our home win against Shuttlers. There is still all to play for. Division One of the Ladies Pairs sees Wychelm sitting in last place unfortunately, but with the top of the table splitting hairs, there may be an opportunity to sneak a better place as the season develops. We have been getting high scores, so hopefully our points difference will help increase our ranking. It’s the same story for Division Two with our second Ladies Pairs also in 5th place.
Tournaments Coming Up:
The Challenge Cup, our annual handicapped knock out tournament, will be drawn just after Christmas, so clubs should start thinking about who they are going to enter, as the team will need to be selected and sent in before Christmas. The information regarding this should be sent to clubs at some point in December.
Make a Wish Foundation is a hosting a charity tournament on 4th January, where a junior under 15 years old plays in partnership with an adult. The entry closing date is 7th December so please ask a committee member for more information if you fancy grabbing a youngster and having a go at this one. The league are also doing their bit by contributing towards the cost of feather shuttles to use for the competition, so bear in mind that this is all for a good cause.
With the 70th Anniversary Tournament being such a rip roaring success last year, a repeat performance is now on the cards for this year, where the same venue has been provisionally booked for Sunday 18th May. Last year, I was embarrassed to be one of only two Wychelmers who attended the event – don’t let me down again team. Start thinking about it now and I’ll keep you posted on all the information as soon as I have it.
Unregistered Players:
Last Wednesdays meeting also saw some drama unfold as we discussed the matter of registering players on the same day that they are due to play league games, and in some cases, after the declared start time of the match. After a heated vote, the concluding decision was that all players who will be playing in matches must be registered with the league before the start time of the match they are due to play. With all of the difficulties involving unregistered players last season, this really has to be nipped in the bud, so clubs who have registered players after the start time of their matches have had their games forfeited to the opponents. All players need to be registered with the league ideally before match day, so please try your best to be organised about this and check with your club secretary who is registered and who isn’t registered so you know who can be in your reserve list as well.
Until Next Time:
Again, if anyone has anything they wish me to raise with the league committee or if they wish to find out any more information about joining the league committee or if you want any more info on anything, then please come and speak to me and I will be happy to do what I can!
