Once in a rare while a very special person comes into one’s life, and in this case, it was into our entire membership’s lives. Stu Holmes joined the Club in his early thirties and in a matter of 5 short years made a big impact on all our social and sporting lives. He took the fun and enjoyment of our game to a new level as well as becoming a skilful player himself. Tragically he passed away, quietly in his sleep, at the age of 38 in Jan, 2011, leaving behind his lovely partner Rachel, his daughter Sophie and the rest of his family and friends with huge holes in their lives.
Stu was a great advocate of introducing new players to the game and it is to his memory that we retain that requirement in the management of the Club today. Each of the eight teams that took to the green on Sunday had either a recently joined player or Junior player included in them, as we have done every season since 2012. The Tournament was also played in a manner we know he would approve of – in laugh-out-loud clothing and laced with plenty of banter. This was followed by a BBQ and an hour or so of telling tall stories and more banter.
Despite the distractions of the banter, we managed to keep scores for the day with a very close finish. The winners and runners-up both won 4 games and were separated by only 2 ends out the total of 32 ends played. The gallant runners-up were Eileen Ponting, Ian D
avis and Richard Ponting, of the One Foot in the Ditch mob and the Trophy was awarded to fans of three codes of football, Union, League and Grid Iron, Sam Conner being the very new convert from the American version to Lawn Bowls. Darrin McClay was the Union Referee and Karl Glenn (Skip) the League Fan. Well done guys, it was a great day. Stu would have been in his element.
