Coooeeee it's only me!
Here come the girls!
To start this week's newsletter, it's over to Ladies' Captain Rose for her round up of the fortnight's events!
"The Alliance "A" team have had a wonderful start to this season with a draw Away at Weston-Super-Mare and then winning their first Home fixture of the season against Mendip.
They also fought a great battle against Minchinhampton Away, as winners of last season's Bristol and District Alliance challenging the winners of the Cotswold Alliance, but were just edged out of retaining the 'green glass trophy' losing 3 matches to 4.
Su Worthington and Karen Rix are through to the second round in the Alliance Scratch Foursomes, beating Bath at Home.
B&C were represented in the final of the County Greensomes held at Minchinhampton Old course. Both pairs, Pao Poole & Ali Vyas and Su Worthington & Sue Wilson, scored 28 points, with the winners Tracy Park, scoring 33 points. This was a qualifying competition held at B&C on 14th September 2014 and the same competition will be held this year on Sunday, 13 September."
Rose
Thanks Rose, very interesting and great news!
Our weekday medal was held last Tuesday and the winner, who also won the April Medal, was Ed Allsopp. Congratulations Ed, you're on fire! Great news and wholeheartedly deserved.
The May Medal division one was won by Carey Ashworth, with Ed Brown taking second place and Mike Blake third place.
The second division was won by Club Captain Geoff Clements and Jeremy Brooks took second place, followed closely by Mark Sercombe.
Great golf guys!
The Volvo qualifier and Help the Heroes competition is on at the weekend so get online and reserve your tee time! The Reid Quaich then follows on 24th May so plenty to play competitively in!
Now over to Paul to fill you in on his latest exploits.
Woody flies off to play in the Spanish Open at the end of the weekend and has been practising all week. Finally he gets to play three local (ish) tournaments on the bounce. After Spain is the BMW Championships at Wentworth followed by the Irish Open. A steady start for Chris and in just five events he has moved comfortably into the top 100 in the Race to Dubai.
I went to Royal Lytham and St Anne's to watch Jimmy Mullen play in one of the major international Amateur tournaments, the Lytham Trophy. What an amazingly difficult golf course! Wow! The first nine holes were playing into a 25mph wind, making the par fours barely reachable in regulation for these plus four, five and six handicapped golfers from all over the world. The GB&I Captain, Nigel Edwards, braved the weather to watch his Walker Cup Squad players, and watched plus five handicapper Jimmy play the back nine of his second round in a superb one under par.
The Walker Cup is being played at Royal Lytham in September and Jimmy is desperate to be part of the team and take on the Americans. So far so good but Jimmy still needs a couple of good results over the summer to secure his place in the team. Jimmy finished in 23rd position with rounds of 74, 75, 74, 73. The winner was a Swedish player who won by eight shots with a brilliant total four round score of level par, in those conditions!
Bristol and Clifton's very own star lady golfer, nineteen year old Alexandra Saunders, competed in the British Ladies University Tour Championships at the difficult Dukes course at St. Andrews and played fantastically well to finish in third position. A great performance from an improving Alex who has reduced her handicap from 3 to 1 in the first quarter of 2015. Well done Alex.
Another one of my pupils won the Gloucestershire Ladies County Championships last Sunday. Ebonie Lewis, who plays off a handicap of three at the age of just fourteen, scraped through the stroke play qualifier to reach the knockout quarter finals. Two wins later, she was teeing it up in the final against Becky Gibbs, who has just recently joined Bristol and Clifton. After a tough, hard fought battle with Becky, Ebonie made an eagle and a few birdies to become the new County Champion in this high quality battle. Well done to both of you!
Back to Mrs M!
Have a great week,
Paul
Club of the year
Our academy had a call last week from England Golf, to set up the runners up Club of the Year presentation for the next couple of weeks at B&C. Drat I have left it too late to lose six stone so they will have to have me as I am luvvies! Does anyone have any Spanx I can borrow? They need to start at the neck and go down to the ankles!
As the main work for this revolved around myself, Paul and Andy, as well as Mark Betteridge and Peter Bell, it will be us three accepting the award. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my assistant Andy McGreevy for his continued support and help. He is my right hand man when it comes to inclusion, group work and planning, and I am so grateful to have him in my academy. Sometimes he does not get the credit he deserves so I want to say thanks Andy for making the disabled golf work a pleasure, I know I can always count on you to get it right. We will join Mark, Peter and England Golf representative Chris Hicks for the presentation so I am excited about this. More on this after the award!
Andy is also working ever more with the GGU under 18's squad to set them on the path of golf specific fitness and healthy eating. This is vital to anyone who is looking to play full time and achieve their goals, so I am also proud to offer this service through Andy. He is a vital and valuable part of my team. We are also looking to recommence his golf fitness sessions, for ladies and gents, at a local facility soon. Keep posted!
It has been a few weeks of tremendous work for myself and Junior Organiser John Pajak, to field a Junior team against Lansdown on May 3rd. It is an uphill struggle to find junior players who can make the date, be of a Congu handicap status AND have an active handicap! Blimey we don't want much do we? These lovely juniors are expected to do so much for the league, but they are all determined and I love them to bits. I would like to take this opportunity to thank John for being on board and helping me so much. I had a little wobble last week after an issue with the BDJGL and I was ready to quit, but John spurred me on to keep going, so his support is key to my continuation. We are going along nicely!
I would also like to thank my brave warriors, Finnian Smith, Harry Kennedy, Finn Ellis, Seb Stoakley, Lewis Scally, Josh Scally and Archie Grayson. Guys you go out every time and battle away, you never give up and you hold your heads up high. I am so so proud of all of you. Let's keep going and see where it take us! The final score against Lansdown ended up 3-2 to them, but it doesn't matter a jot, because we're fabulous!
What else has been happening this week?
I would just like to thank some very generous donors to the Bean challenge this week - Mary, you're wonderful. Robert, and the rotary club, you're also wonderful. Thank you so much. I am uber excited now, not long till I get my "beans jeans" on! I will look most utterly ridiculous but I don't care! Our total is going up and up,and we smashed the £300 target quite a while ago so I am eternally grateful to you fantastic and warm hearted friends. We are probably closer to £700 raised now so you can't imagine what that means to me. Each SATs monitor, which monitors an epileptic child's breathing during the night and emitting a loud siren should any inconsistency occur, costs £800.
With this money we are raising for The Daisy Garland charity we are able to buy another monitor for a family of an epileptic child, so that their parents can rest at night knowing that any variation in breathing (or seizure activity affecting respiration) will be picked up by the monitor and they will be woken from sleep to help their child. This seriously reduces the risk of SUDEP, which Daisy died of. The Daisy Garland gave me a monitor to watch over Cam, and this is only possible with the amazing donations given by such fabulous people as you guys. Thank you all so much.
We held two Belgrave School sessions this week, the younger Blue Class (12 and under) and the older (teenage) Orange class. It's great to see their progress ever improving! They are learning to play. Thanks to Paul and Andy for their patience, planning, expert coaching and great work - well done guys. I have also been lucky enough to secure another £250 to run more sessions for Belgrave after half term, so we will keep coaching and bettering ourselves!
I set the rest of the Academy a little challenge last week during their staff appraisals......we shall see what gives and report back! (Oh no another cliff-hanger!)
Cam has been busy at school, and coaching Woody when he can!
Cam reckons his technique is OK but he thinks Woody could do with a new glove! (As he nicked it!)
Inclusive golf
We are starting our new sessions of inclusive golf sessions in May, on 2nd, 9th and 16th. We have recruited three new attendees, two from our Get into golf work and one from our work in special schools, so we welcome Lesley, Georgie and Curtis to the Paul Mitchell Inclusive Golf Academy. We now have a regular base of eight attendees for the inclusive weekend sessions and it's always a pleasure to have more pupils. If you know of someone who would benefit from attending, or who would like to know more, please put them in touch with us, we'd love to help.
Food and crafts news!
As my thoughts sooner or later turn to eating (usually sooner), I thought I would share this week's efforts. Frittata Tuesday, Cheesy Cauliflower and broccoli bake Thursday and pasta on Friday.
Does anyone have a good Swiss roll recipe? I have fond memories of my Nan's but she sadly passed away ten years ago at the ripe old age of 89. If you have an (easy!) recipe, please email it to me or send me it as I am keen to make one for my Cam.
Click here to get in touch if you have a special recipe to contribute to my collection.
Talking of making things, I am also in awe of some of the wonderful things our members make. One lady member makes the most beautiful rugs from chopped up old clothes, her work is something to behold. I also had the pleasure of meeting this little chap, made from balls and tees, thanks to Karen Price. He does like a bit of spinach! You really are all a very talented bunch of wonderfulness!
I also have a really REALLY big thank you this week. My friend Mike Biggs came to see on Monday. In his bag he had a present for me. I was utterly choked up. Mike makes the most incredible wooden secret boxes, and last December he showed me one he raffled at the Seniors' Christmas Lunch for my charity, the Daisy Garland, and raised £120. At that time I absolutely loved the box, it is a thing of craftmanship and beauty, and I never thought I would own one of my own. The present Mike gave me on Monday was my very own handmade secret box, with my initials on the top, and an extra special hidden drawer inside. Mike you are the most wonderful man in the world and I love you dearly. I LOVE IT.
It has taken pride of place in my living room and it damn well deserves it!
Before I go, just a reminder to vote for my community project at Aviva - I need all the votes I can get! Click here to register to vote, to find better prizes and more schools to compete in our inclusion festival in September. The project is Inclusive Junior Golf Festival for all.
So we carry on, with hope in our hearts, and you'll never walk alone.......
Because we'll find you, you can't hide from us ha!
Hasta luego mi angelitos
Poco (or should that read grande?!) Caren, Poco Paul, Poco Kris. Poco Andy y poco Luke