The beginning of Summer

 

As we found the station shut

The weekly visit was put on hold,

Instead let’s go chip and putt

‘Ambulances all out’ we were told.

 

For two pound a hundred balls

We’ll need plenty of those,

‘Look out’ someone calls

Lucky it was only her toes.

 

Stanners brought along his bats,

Amongst all other gear

We all thought he looked a t**t

Bless him, no idea.

 

An auctioneer’s speech drew crowds

On the eleventh of the fourth,

He spoke well and laughed aloud

David Kivell paced back and forth.

 

As topics moved to sadder days

Recollections of foot and mouth,

Not again, a distant haze

Never, north or south.

 

Question time from Batten Fliss

When, why, What if?

‘I suppose it’s a bit like this’,

Mr Kivell combed his quiff.

 

 

Laser shooting to amuse the boys,

Not knowing until St Teath.

Facepaint, boots, Guns and toys,

Camouflaged overalls, and the rest

 

Duchy College, as the cool mist looms

Two mini busses roll to West Combeshead,

‘Come on, gather round’ Paul Ward booms

‘Yes Arron’ that’s what I said.

 

Here’s the parlour, cubicles and cows

And that’s the clusters Jeremy,

‘So, whats your breeding policy now

And average number of parity’?

Many thanks for pasty and squash

Now let’s retire to the Swingletree,

Last few spaces in the car park, bosh

Pork scratching’s, lemonade and ice for three.

 

 

May

A big beginning to May as stock judging preceded the AGM, appreciations must be delivered to Messer Smale, Gubbin and Uglow for capturing the various animals, explaining what to look out for and what to say when being judged. We are also indebted to Ringo star and co. for welcoming us into their establishment to conclude the evening of stock judging.

This year’s AGM was in Blackpool, county chairman Ed and team rowed along the Thames in boats of two by two, raising money with every paddle. They were joined by the ballroom dancing team who did extremely well, see video from earlier post.

The second visit of the month was to Cornwall Air Ambulance, this time the ambulance hadn’t left the building, which was fortunate because Daniel Batten had a cheque to present on behalf of the club for funds raised in the previous year whilst he was chairman.

Girls entertain boys, climbing in Exeter. Chris was first through the door, as we all know now this man has no fear of heights; a man possessed, leaping from the balconies like a ring-tailed lemur in the treetops looking for the fruit of forgiveness as once again the climbing instructor bellows up at him from the woodland floor bringing him back down to earth.

NFYFC Ballroom Dancing Final, 2013

Check out our dancers- Sally Bartlett, Kelly Cornelius, Mitch Hawken and Oliver Stephens along with Matt Delbridge and Emma Gerry of Liskeard.
They pulled out all the stops and performed an excellent routine in the Empress Ballroom, Blackpool.
See the video here!

March

'The Barn' was where seven members turned out to scrabble about walls in a shed.
7th March at Milton Abbot, not such a big turn out for this evening but those that went had enough fun to make up for the lack in numbers. As soon as they arrived Chris pushed his way past the warm welcome that he may have received, Junior rock climbing champion from 2008-2012 this man needs no introduction. Before Joe Harris; The Barn Youth Climbing Club Co-ordinator - NGB Awards: CWLA and SPA could say 'arn't you the Junior rock climbing champion from 2008-2012' Chris was gone, a man on a mission, he needs no ropes, helmet or harness, not even a dab of chalk as he strides across 'The Barn'. He reaches the highest most challenging section of the wall cordoned off by black and yellow tape, he leans forward and tares the plastic ribbon with his teeth, squares up his underpants and begins to climb. Gasps and shouts echo around the cold farm building, already the height of several dwarfs from the ground he stops and turns to look at the congregation that had gathered below, 'Chris, what are you doing?' 'Come down here'. Spotting a nearby rope dangling from the roof with one leap he grasped the climbing rope and absailed his way to the ground. Mr Harris was not impressed, throwing a harness and hat Chris' smirk eased a little as the group made their way to the changing rooms. When all geared up with supervision from a couple more instructors they all had a go at the easy section of the wall this time, with Avril drawing everyones attention to the size of her bum. Eventually we all found out why Chris didn't want to wear the harness as quite a scene unfolded when he came to take off the webbing bound garment, buckles wouldn't budge or clips move, but after much embarrassment and removal of all clothing the rock climbing champion was released.


Weymouth, South West Area 2013.
The Olympic town welcomed us with the cold and overcast weather that we have learnt to expect over the past few months, all that's needed is to close your eyes and imagine the previous years events.
The sun shone for a couple weeks to allow the wind surfing, underwater hockey, up hill swimming and extreme ironing to take place. It is quite a busy town and Leanne found this out as she stood eyes shut taking deep breaths of sea air to imagine the scene last year, the angry sound of car horns made her realise that the main road isn't the place to think of Ben Ainslie Harriot cooking a stir-fry whilst sailing just off the Dorset coast.
On Saturday morning in an upstairs room of the pavilion centre the " After dinner speaking competition", for the south west counties was held, Claire and Dan with two Camelford maids and a chap from Lostwithiel made up the team for Cornwall.
With their well prepared speech's and fine clothes they blew the judges socks of with the wit, humour and frivolous mannerisms that ooze from a perfectly formed team.
Cornwall won the competition with Daniel crowned best speaker overall.

Southern Area final winners


Also the ballroom dancing team for the county from Launceston, choreographed by Sally with Kelly, Mitch and Oliver, joined by a pair from Liskeard. The three couples danced with absolute skill, brushing aside most of the competition with considerable ease, tango, rumba, quickstep and jive the moves to envy all dancers, even Len Goodmen would have given ten whole points. Mr Battens Bruno Tonioli was uncontrollable and needed to be taken aside for a while. A draw with Devon concluded.




















21st March, Talk by a Mental Health Nurse.
A colleague to Sadie, who works helping people with early symptoms of psychosis. Adrian told us of the experiences he had with drugs during his youth and how this had encouraged him to use his experiences to help others, a very good talk from an interesting chap.


28th March, East vrs West County Rugby Match,
Tregorrick Park, St Austell at 7:00, this was where the annual match was played this year. From Launceston Birdy, Dan B, Dan J, Buzz and George, the team were keen to win as the west won last years match. With the east in the oppositions half for the first twenty minutes a break away try put the west ahead but failed to gain the extra points with the conversion, this made the easterly players feel quite put out, and so they retaliated with a try, and kicked the points.
During the second half after again spending a while in the oppositions half a drop goal was attempted and secured another three points for the east. Territory in the second half was more even than the first and this allowed another try for the west which again they missed the conversion, leaving the game to finish at 10 points a piece.
In other news Edd decided that he should drive to Truro during the do at the rugby club so Claire, George and myself thought we'd provide some company, as we approached Truro Claire began to tell us  how many moons ago she would dress up her brother, who worked at Treliske for a while, then Edd replied with how he used to spend hours playing with lego, George then told us what he used to do with his lego.

February

Ice skating

On the 7th February members made their way to Plymouth to see Daniel dancing on ice.

After arriving and collecting our skates Claire told everyone that if they did fall over on the ice to make sure that they landed with clenched fists, this was just in case someone else ran over any outstretched hands chopping off fingers. We were all surprised with the confidence and elegance that Daniel displayed as he moved around the rink with considerable ease, however with Claire's words still fresh in his mind when the little demon did make a mistake his fists were clenched but arms didn't move quickly enough to meet the ice, this was done by his head instead. At least we all left with the same number of digits that we arrived with.

Talk by a Miner

St Valentines day couldn't distract this miner from down west from travelling to the White Hart.
A chap with an enviable sense of humour, the sort that can pick the grains of goodness out of the dung heap of life, even working in a mine with little more than a lamp on his head and a song in his heart Mark Kaczmarek couldn't wipe the smile of his face. After spending 17 years working at South Crofty and having a long while off work due to a severe accident he has working his way up from a man with a hammer to leading several chaps and now becoming a well respected councillor.


Team building

Thursday 21st, after a cancelled meeting this was a quickly arranged evening to have a few games and enjoy some time talking to and working with other members. Tim and Sadie were given some advice on team building at the county training weekend, and so used some ideas from that to entertain the troops tonight. A mean raffle followed the prizes cannot be mentioned.

Dung run prep+Sunday run

28th February, by kind permission of the Brookham family, members brought their old clothes and a prong and set about filling bags. Everyone was working well until Rambo appeared with his crotchless waterproofs, this provided a fair bit of amusement; surprisingly though this did speed up productivity. After all the excitement refreshments indoors were greatly enjoyed.



On Sunday 3rd we all met at Maunders car park to pose of a photograph, and made our way in to the five teams that would travel about Launceston and surrounding areas delivering bags to those who had orders and those who did not. After last years rainy season there was some concern that people would not be so keen to buy dung as they may not have done much in the garden last year, but at the end of the day after travelling around north Cornwall and west Devon all bags were sold in aid of R.N.L.I. A good weekend with no nudity.

 

Dung Run

This years dung run is on Sunday the third of March.

Please tell family and friends, get an order together and ring Leanne on 07773898609

Bags are £2 and in aid of the RNLI.

January

2013 started on a Tuesday but we didn't meet until Thursday, so on Thursday the third of January we popped down to the pantomime at Plymouth.

Dick Whittington was on, with Christopher Biggins flying round as a chandelier and Bassil Brush bouncing around in his box they amused us for hours, oh yes they did.

On the tenth we met in the Eagle House Hotel to have a darts evening, this was followed by a run through of the drama that we had been rehearsing for 'A mad breakfast'. Directed by Sally Bartlett with help from Simon Burden on the advisory committee, this evenings performance left everyone speechless, really quite speechless.

Tonight was the night that our After Dinner Speaking team took to the stage at Mount Village Hall!! Daniel Batten, Sofie Watton, Claire Butter, Heather Stanbury and Sadie Cornelius donned their best clothes and pulled out the best jokes they could find to earn a well respected and deserved 1st place :)
Thanks to the members that came to support tonight and to Ali and Roger for coming as well.

Trethorne competitions evening, Saturday the twenty sixth.
A county evening with several competitions including Ten Pin Bowling, Dodgems, Pool, Just a Minute, Pub Quiz and the dancing competition, this time ballroom. Our ballroom team Sally, Oliver, Charlotte, Sophie, Kelly and Mitch came first and will join up with Liskeard to dance for Cornwall at the south west area competition in March. Best of luck

After dinner speaking, Tuesday the twenty ninth. After dinner speaking competition, with Launceston finishing in first place earlier on in the month there were high hopes for the team tonight. It was a tight competition! Big congratulations must also go to Praze, Lostwithiel and Camelford.
Also well done to Daniel Batten for winning the best speaker award.

Parents evening, the last meeting of the month. Friends and family gathered to see what had go on over the last year, before we started a minutes silence was held for Mr Brian Kenyon. This years entertainment is drama 'A Mad Breakfast' was the title of the play that we had a go at. Also the ballroom dancing was performed and a slide show of the year in pictures, followed by a mean raffle.




Drama Round, Liskeard Town Hall on Sunday the third February.
It was show time; for many weeks we had been practising for this moment, with the aim of reaching the county final. We had an hour to rehearse in the morning before performing first in the afternoon, the morning slot found us enough time to set up the scenery and run through a few pages of script before twelve o'clock arrived and we were asked to leave. No time for the Fat Frog today we nervously nibbled some sandwich, while trying to hold Lizzie back from the muffins, Miss Brown took some persuading not to use the cable ties.
But at two o'clock with the correct makeup in the right places the curtain was drawn to the scene of a boarding house at six o'clock in the morning with Waitress Lizzie and Miss Simpkins the owner laying the tables.
The play ran seamlessly, lines were delivered with crisp clarity and perfection, those at parents evening would have been blown away with the realistic and precise performance of the actors and actresses. Its clear that the endless hours of verbal lashing from Sally and tightening of the mental thumb screws from Birdie, the repeated shouts of 'your not going home 'till you've done it properly' actually worked. The best performance ever from those people performing that script was on that stage, as the curtain fell the audience were beside themselves with admiration, there weren't enough roses in Liskeard to fulfil the insatiable appetite of those that wished they had one to take home for a vase in the kitchen.
After watching Liskeard and St Mabyn perform it was time for the judges to announce the scores for the six performances over the weekend, those through to the county final were St Mabyn, Wadebridge and Helston and St Keverne. Well done to Liskeard, St Buryan and Launceston for taking the time to put together such good performances, and from Launceston Jonny Arnold, Mitch Hawkin, Elenor Northey, Kelly Cornelius, Abby Cornelius, Sadie Cornelius, Arron Gregory, Becky Walters, Claire Butter, Sally Bartlett and Simon Burden for finding the script, directing the play, getting everyone to keep up so we could perform at Liskeard as best we could.