Fund Raiser Event

Thanks and congratulations to Kris for organising a very enjoyable and successful fund raiser at The Chelmsford yesterday. From 15:00 hrs right through to Closing Time competitions were held for darts, dominoes, pool, and quoits and it all went extremely smoothly thanks to the excellent organisation of the event.

Kris has an ambitious plan to raise enough money to buy our own team transport and I'm sure yesterday's takings will been a step in the right direction towards this.

Race Night

No darts were played last night as the League held a Race Night up at Chopwell Central. There was a strong turn-out from the majority of league teams and a well organised event was held whereby we placed £1 bets on eight randomly chosen race videos. I'm sure this will have been a successful funds raiser for League and we all had a great night out.

I was quite good at selecting the horses which would be given the best odds after the bets were placed, but as usual it was all to no avail as not a single one of mine came in. Jean and a couple of others did well though.

As always, superb hospitality and facilities from the Chopwell Central.

We Love Darts Magazine

New to the Barbados touring party this year were Amanda and Steve representing the We Love Darts magazine. Amanda is an Assistant on the mag, and she did a great job of publicising it to everyone at the various festival events. Loads of dart flights and complimentary copies of the magazine were given out, and it's a wonder either of them had room for clothes in their suitcases!

She gave me a couple of back issues and I had a good read through them. The editorial style is light hearted and entertaining, and there is plenty of interesting content with comparatively few adverts.

The business side of launching a new mag was a real eye opener to me. I didn't know that Supermarkets charge such high fees for shelf space, and you need a lot of capital to stand any chance. All the best to them, because it is a decent read.

Barbados Highlights - The AT & T Hideaway

The AT&T Hideway

For some strange reason the AT&T Hideway evening has not appeared on the official schedule for the Barbados Darts Tournament for the last two years.

Thankfully Colin Smith rectified this by organising this himself unofficially, so we still got to play the best event going in a tradtitional Bajan venue.

Incredible hospitality and comradery. Top marks to Colin and the AT&T - the best night of the holiday by far!

The Turf 3 - 7 Chelmsford

Practice darts on the D4

In stark contrast to our poor start against Leadgate CC in October we got off to a flyer against The Turf last night, winning the first four games to take a 0-4 lead. It's a team game, so getting these points in the Team and all three Doubles games reflects well on us.

There were quite a few people in The Turf, with another League's match being played in the Main Bar on one of their three boards. With the pub trade subdued at the moment perhaps this shows one way it can be done?

Man of The Match goes to Roger for sinking the first two doubles of the night to set us on our way. Peter is mentioned in dispatches for a strong Singles game which had the possibility of being an 11 darter after two consecutive ton forties, but a little hesitation on the finish brought the average down.

Catch - up Results

Practice darts on D3

The team have been doing great while I have been away ( ! ) , and here are the results from the games I missed :

04/11/2009 - The Ox Inn 4 - 6 Chelmsford
The Man Of The Match was Kris.

11/11/2009 - Chelmsford 7 - 3 The Ox Inn
The Man Of The Match was Roger. I heard all about his exploits last night - very well done.

Back from The Barbados Darts Festival 2009

The hotel's beach at sunset

We returned back to England this afternoon after another memorable and eventful trip to beautiful Barbados for their Darts Festival.

Wayne Mardel was an excellent host. His sense of humour is well known to all, and it was on show throughout his time with us, as well as some spectacular exhibition tricks such as blowing the darts at the board with his mouth - to a higher accuracy on the D8 than I could ever get the normal way!

Over the next few weeks I'll post the main highlights of the trip. I think with darts you either win or learn when you play competitively, and I sure "learnt" a lot this time around :o)