Petanque Tradition

An open letter from Jean Philippe Guglielmi:-

Monday 21 April 2008

G' day,  Bonjour,

Thank you for your interest in the first Pétanque-Tradition picnic yesterday. We were blessed with a gorgeous autumn day. It was a very successful premiere.
With only five days notice we were encouraged by the attendance; 31 adults but, more importantly 5 teenage boys who tried pétanque for the first time; 15 enjoyed the picnic and a total of 20 adults engaged in the organised pétanque games.

By comparison, the attendance of yesterday is 300% more than the attendance we had when we restarted the Club-de-Pétanque d’Adelaide in 1985 and when we lunched the Prospect Pétanque Club in 1996.

We received the following suggestions:

- To have the same activity once a month.

- A game fee of $1.00 for buying bottled wine for prizes.

- To have a club room, located centrally and ideally in the parkland.

- To name the club “South-Park” or “La Marseillaise” (La Marseillaise is the pétanque-tradition world championship, played in the French city of Marseille in the first weekend of July. It attracts more than 12,000 participants and it is so popular that it will be limited to 13,000 participants).

- The games should not have a time-limit because that stops the fun.

Answers:

-At this stage we do not have a club or association legally constituted; we are only a contact network organising outings.
Pétanque -Tradition (Pétanque traditionnelle in French) is not an association, it is the style and manner pétanque is played by 17 million French amateurs.

-Until we are legally constituted with public liability insurance, no game fee can be collected.
Same for the name, no club yet, no name yet.

-By limiting the games to 45 minutes, we do not stop the fun after 45 minutes, the fun continues but with another opponent. e.g. if you play in a non-timed game and you end your game in 30 minutes, your next opponents take 1h.30 to finish their game... you have to wait 1h to play again them... that’s not fun.

- A club room will be good for shelter especially on rainy days (rain in Adelaide?... yes please!).
We have a club in the parkland in mind. We will have to share it with the existing sport club. What is most important is to play pétanque in shade because the UV rays are very strong in Adelaide. The Princess Elizabeth Playground at 21 South Terrace Adelaide offers lot of pistes under shade; yesterday two teams were playing pétanque-cross on the pistes under the trees.

Next month we will play on the same spot, on the 18th May 2008.
Bernard S. will bring a gazebo for shelter and the trees will still be there for the shade.
Some pétanque junkies asked to start recreational games at 10.30am.
They are welcome to do so (they must call and invite their opponent).

The organised games will start at 1.30pm (after the picnic).

Please, if you know players who wishes to play pétanque-sport, direct them to the South Australian Pétanque League web site: http://www.sapetanque.com/

Thank you, Merci, and to the pleasure to seeing you soon.

Jean-Philippe Guglielmi