2022 Family Appreciation Games

Updated 2022-10-06 with more specific information on business donations and the prizes awarded.

The Family Appreciation Games took place on a sunny day at the club with more than 60 attendees, enough to create eight triples games of bowling and two courts of croquet.

This day celebrated the record number of 75 new members who joined under the club’s Family Membership plan introduced this year.

But as happens too often at the club, there was drama right from the start, and later, unease with the distribution of the prizes.

The Spirit of the Greens

The “Spirit of the Greens” called the assembly to order at 1:30, but the event began in a shocking way. “Who has recently been to Mexico?” intoned the Spirit. All fingers pointed to Robert Game who seems to have thought he could get away with passing a Mexican 5-peso coin, value 0.35CAD, rather than a toonie as part of his entry fee.

The assembly gasped in shock as Robert was called out in front of the whole school and forced to make good.

The crowd was more sympathetic than the accuser. Classmate David Stinson rushed out to thrust money into impoverished Robert’s hands.

Interviewed after the event and asked whether he repented, Robert adopted his best Rhett Butler stance, “Frankly . .  I don’t give a damn.”

Immediately after the fraud was discovered, the spider took place and was won by Joan Hall. Everyone knows that there is a very small chance of winning through the chaos of a spider, so people congratulated Joan on her good fortune in winning a $25 gift certificate. 

However, unease set in a couple of hours later when the Allan and Joan Hall also made off with the $165 50/50 prize. Joan is known to be lucky though. Checkout the Valentine’s Day link on the Darts page. Not everyone can hit the bull three times with three consecutive darts.

Prize winners: Marion Burow, Brett Jansen, Brian Sandercock with chief prize dispenser Brent Merchant

But to return to the Games . . . there was no formal scoring for the triples games. Manager Brent Merchant declared that any team that won their bowls game 22-3 was the obvious winner so Brent Jansen, Marian Burow and Brian Sandercock won Tim Hortons’ gift certificates.

The eight croquet players played quiet non-commercial games and are too genteel to declare than anyone “won.”

The full complement of 48 players was only made possible thanks to last-minute volunteering by Karen Heagle, Lauren Charlton and Alex Miller after three players dropped out after the registration deadline. COVID is still among us. . . . 

After the games, the real purpose of the 60+ attendees became apparent – free pizza. New members were not charged any fee for the day, but renewing members all had to pay $5 for their free pizza, which some found puzzling 😕. However, only Robert (see above) openly rebelled.

Believe it or not, planning for the allocation of eight separate choices of pizza took almost as much time as scheduling the tournament. We had to deal with such crises as there being no such thing as a “gluten-free meat pizza”  from Hot House Pizza on Foul Bay Road, who gave us a 10% discount on our order. Would the single member who selected this option be content with a gluten free vegetarian pizza??? Would 2.5 slices per person be an accurate estimate for the total pizza order? (It was.) Brent Merchant tried to get rid of the left-over pizza by pretending to all the disappointed 50-50 ticket holders that a cold pizza slice was in fact a prize in the 50/50, but got no takers for that.

All in all, a very good day for everyone. Good weather, friendly games, pizza, a 50/50 and over $450 in gift certificates awarded, $100 of which was provided by Matt MacNeil of the Penny Farthing Pub. Our main corporate sponsor was Tony Tucker who owns the Oak Bay Pharmasave. This year Tony has given us $1000. He gave $500 to help raise money for our CHAMP tournament. For our Family Game he provided ten $25 gift certificates and $250 cash, which paid for the Family members’ pizza. Please thank these business when you go to their stores. 

Thanks again to Gloria Brown who provided us with the photo gallery. Look through it; you may be in there!