August 2010

Dick Gets Life

Yes, that’s right! Congratulations to Richard (Dick) O’Rourke, who was awarded Life Membership of the Dickson Squash Club at the recent Annual General Meeting.

Fittingly, Dick is the first life member of the Club, following a constitutional amendment to introduce this award at the AGM. The Committee intends this to be the Club’s ultimate accolade, awarded very rarely to those who have provided exceptional support to the Club over a long period. Given that objective, awarding life membership to Dick was an obvious and easy step.

For those that are new to the Club, all you really need to know is that he’s the rock around which the Club operates. He has done an outstanding job for countless years as the Club’s Treasurer, team liaison officer, fostering the development of juniors, and everything else necessary to ensure the Club’s success.

2010 Spring Pennant (breaking news!)

Some players in lower grades have been disappointed that the first “combination of courts” left them with few games at Northside this competition. The Club has taken this up with Squash ACT, who have agreed to issue a new “combination of courts” over the weekend. This will affect more teams (previously, higher grades have played all their home games at Northside while lower grades have had games re-allocated elsewhere). However, the aim will be that no Dickson team will have more than two home games re-allocated this competition. All of us should get to play a fair share of our games at Northside.

Dick will email team captains when the new “combination of courts” is on the Matrix. If there are still problems, please let Dick or Len Early know.

2010 Club Championships

Our 2010 Club Championships were held in late July were again enormously successful, particularly with this year’s strong sponsorship from The Tradies Club. Congratulations to the following winners:

Open Men’s Josh Larkin

A Women’s Leanna Davey

A Men’s James Aspland

B Men’s Anthony Burgess

B Women’s Pam Price

C Men’s Martin McGuire

D Men’s Luke Caban

E Men’s Adam Fleming Wilkie

Doubles 1 Michelle Morelle & Paul Cartwright

Doubles 2 Annette White & Doug Lean

Doubles 3 Leanna Davey & Matthew Hall

All match results are on www.squashmatrix.com

Annual General Meeting

The Club’s annual general meeting was held on 31 July. Boring official duties were kept to a minimum. Here are the exciting bits:

As well as being awarded Life Membership, Dick O’Rourke was awarded the annual President’s Trophy for his significant contribution to the Club over the last year.

Nathan Curran was awarded the Bodyline Sports award for the most improved player of the year. His matrix rating had jumped a stunning 80 points!!

Congratulations to Dick and Nathan.

2010 Autumn Pennant

Here are the teams that made the Grand Final and how they fared:

Social Events

Keep an eye out for more detail on the following upcoming social events:

Vineyard Tour

As the weather warms, the Club will again look to hold it’s inaugural tour of local vineyards.

Christmas Party

Plans will soon be made for our 2010 Christmas Party. If you have any ideas about timing, location, activities etc, please contact someone on the Committee.

Dusk till Dawn

The all night “Dusk till Dawn” squash challenge will be held on 17 December. Teams of 4 will play squash throughout the night, with matches starting at 9:00 pm and finishing with a good old fashioned BBQ at 7:00 am the next morning.

Clubroom Comeback

The Tradies have told us that we can expect to get our clubroom back in January. We aim to celebrate the event with a (very) social competition of some sort, a dinner and by unveiling our new Honour Board.

Car Parking

Sick of driving in circles trying to find a car park just outside the door? Why not join the Tradies Club for only a few pennies, and then park underneath anytime for free. All you have to do is take your entry ticket to the Northside Fitness Centre front counter and have it ‘validated’ each time. If you have any problems, Dick should be able to provide you with a validated ticket.

è WARNING… Don’t forget to get your ticket validated before 8:30, else you’ll have to go into the Tradies Club and do it there.

Dickson Squash Club Committee

The 2010-2011 Committee is:

President: Len Early

Vice President: Stephen Barnett

Secretary: Edwina Mulhearn

Treasurer: Dick O'Rourke

General Members:

Pam Price Paul Cartwright

Anthony Burgess Doug Lean

Julie Polson

Contact details are on the Matrix.

Many thanks to Mark Ciesniewski, Matthew Downey and Sam Bowman who spent many valuable years on the committee between them.