THE WOLDS SPRING TRIPS 26
TWO REPORTS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE.
Because we didn’t have a slot on the Club Open Competitions page on the NY website last year, no one thought to write a report for the inaugural Spring Trips competition. That has now been remedied, and the report has been included below. But let’s do this year’s first.
18/04/26
The 2026 competition had, despite a last minute hiccup the day before, a full entry of twelve teams. Although registered as the club of the skip, many of the teams had guest players from other clubs, which meant that a total of ten clubs were represented. One notable absence from last year was North Duffield’s team of Duffins. Unfortunately, our fixture this year clashed with the Under 18s National Final, so they were all at Melton Mowbray supporting Lilly. (report on the under 18s coming when I get the results)
This years competition had a slightly different format from last year, with every team playing at least one game on each mat, my thanks to Arthur Jackson for redesigning the playing order. Another Improvement was that yours truly didn’t play this year, which allowed me to concentrate on getting the scores right, a distinct improvement on last year. I really don’t know how Robert Mumford does it.
The day progressed in it’s normal easy paced way with a change over period for each session and a lunch break built into the timings. At the end of the Round Robin stage, the winners of Group 1 were a Wolds team of Betty Ding & Sally Hill, skipped by Ian Ding, and the runners up were a mixed Crossgates/Cayton team of Mike Carter & Peter Richardson, skipped by Dave Wicks. The winners and runners up of Group 2 were the Crossgates/Wolds team, David Orchard & Margaret Hill, skipped by Jim Dawson and an Easingwold team of Keith & Joyce Hughes, skipped by Judith Ferns respectively.
Before the Finals Mat 3 was lifted and Mats 1 & 2 were moved in towards the middle of the hall, so that all the teams were effectively playing on a neutral mat. The Group Winners Final saw Jim Dawson’s trio take the gold medals (a second Spring Trips gold for Margaret) while Betty, Sally & Ian took silver. In the Runners-up Final, the team of Mike, Peter & Dave took the bronze.
The day ended at 4:30(ish) with the presentation of medals, prizes and (hopefully) a day enjoyed by all who took part.
12/04/25
The inaugural Wolds Spring Trips competition was launched on Saturday the 12th April 2025, with teams invited from all over the NY area. The competition was organised as a ‘whistle stop’ with teams split into two groups of six, playing five, thirty minute sessions each in a Round Robin. The Winners and runners-up from each group, then went into two finals to decide medal positions. The club had decided on medals and ‘modest’ cash prizes for the gold and silver positions, and a £1 National Lottery scratch card for each of the bronze medal winners. This of course meant that the bronze winners could potentially win the most money.
Happily, the day started with a full complement of teams spread across the NY patch represented by eight clubs. At the end of the Round Robin The Group 1 winners were the Thornton le Dale team headed by Shirley Wakefield and the Group 2 winners were a mixed team headed by Margaret Hill from Crossgates, with Jean Bridges of the Wolds and Nigel Bennet of Cayton. The Runners-up for Group 1 were the Crossgates team headed up by Sue Bond, and in Group 2 a mixed team from the Wolds led by Arthur Jackson.
The Finals saw Margarets team take gold, beating Sue’s team 7-6, and Shirly’s team taking the bronze, winning 10- 4 against Arthur’s team.
All in all, a successful day, but thanks to feedback from the players, a few shortcomings in the organisation came to light which would hopefully be resolved for next year.
Pete Arthur.
