The meeting was a logistical challenge for catering officer Dom as given the out of town venue transport was offered to club members with some members meeting at the Lord Roseberry in town and a second group at the Nags Head.

It was the first time for years that I been in the Lord Roseberry and I understood why the pub is so popular when I was charged £ 1.79 for a pint of hand pulled quality bitter, given the price I thought I had been transported back to the 1980’s !

Once we got to We Love Wine at Brompton the atmosphere was very convivial with the host and hostess.

Canapes were served with food being a mix of Tapas and English the highlight was excellent pork pie and plenty of it.

Chairman Charlie introduced four guests John Price, Nick Taylor, James Denton and Simon Bull, Simon and John were then formally inducted to 41 Club.  

Simon Ward kindly provided a quiz which as ever was hotly contended.

A good turnout of 25 of us braved the January freeze to visit the Marisco Lounge on Sandside. After drinks downstairs, we had private use of the upper floor, which proved to be an excellent venue. After a good meal of vegetable soup followed by steak, fries and salad, Chairman Charlie inducted the latest new member, Alex McCallum.

Brief business occurred, with a sobering report from Ben Kitto to say that while the Santa Sleigh had raised nearly £3000 this time around, the lack of volunteer elves might mean that it won’t happen next year unless extra help can be found. This would be a great shame because it’s an important event not just for the fundraising, but also to raise the profile of Round Table. It would appear that 41 Club can do more in the future to keep this long standing event viable in the years to come. 

Michael Whiteley then reassured us all that he has completely recovered after being rescued from the sea by the lifeboat suffering with severe hypothermia, after being unable to get back to shore. Michael then encouraged us all to attend a quiz on Friday 23^rd February at the Rugby Club, in aid of the Sparks Project. 

Lastly, we had an enthusiastic presentation about the Sea Cadets from the Chairman of Trustees, Bob Smith.

Bob told us that the Sea Cadets range from 10 to 18 years of age, and presently there are approximately 120 of them. They follow the values of Admiral Lord Nelson which are Leadership, Duty and Sacrifice. They were founded about 100 years ago, and are completely self-funding. Cadets enjoy the opportunity to take part in various pastimes such as sailing, mountain biking and mountaineering, as well as learning new social skills. Chairman Charlie thanked Bob and off we went back into the cold outdoors. 

A great evening was had by members and wives at the Market Hall on Saturday night, dancing and having fun listening to the music of “The Seasons”, a tribute act performing the songs of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons.

Some members had been to the 41 Club lunchtime event at the Scarborough rugby ground earlier that day, had not been home between the two events and were enjoying a very merry day.

The dancing prize went to Dave Ascough who was thoroughly enjoying himself dancing mainly on his own for most of the night.

Grateful thanks to the team for organising the event.

Twenty-one brave members and guests braved the arctic winds of Scalby to enjoy Scarborough Rugby Club entertain Moortown. Actually it was a mild December day and Sporting Officer Darren had arranged hospitality, so the group was very much the prawn sandwich brigade. Indeed probably for the first time ever the club with a real life Sir and Lady. The group enjoyed an excellent lunch with abundant refreshment and then courageously stepped out onto the adjacent balcony to watch the match.

Your correspondent kept close to Ian Brabbs who explained the finer points of play to him. His words about the referees bias were less charitable, it would seem that all the sin binning of Scarborough players was absolutely unjustified. It was a classic game of two halves, Moortown stormed into a seemingly unassailable lead, then after a talking to at half-time Scarborough hit back. It was not enough and Moortown ran out comfortable winners.

Our group retired for more refreshments missing the beautiful sunset over the castle. Thanks to Darren for arranging a really successful afternoon of sport and camaraderie.

The September meeting saw 41 Club meetings resume after the summer break. Chairman Charlie was sunning himself in a somewhat warmer and definitely more exotic climate, and so we were in the capable hands of Dominic for this meeting. 

Richard Frank made a rare but welcome appearance, and introduced us all to the new Aalten signpost outside the newly renamed Central Hotel. As you will recall, the previous signpost was outside the Crown Spa Hotel, where it pointed somewhat forlornly to Denmark. The blame for this navigational error, and for the poor condition of the sign, was attributed by Richard to Ian Costello, who then in turn spent the rest of the evening vigorously denying this.  

Anyway, the ceremonial duties performed, we retired into the Central for a most excellent steak pie main course, followed by an equally impressive sticky toffee pudding. 

During the brief business, the secretary announced that Brian Heaps has retired from 41 Club at 93 years of age, after approximately half a century of membership, which is a most impressive feat. We all wish Brian best wishes for a well-deserved rest. 

Details were also supplied about the next meeting, which is the Charity night at the Rugby Club on October 21^st. 

The meeting closed with a toast to both the memory of Richard Appleton, and to the usual RTBI. 

On a glorious summer’s evening (irony? Editor) 10 members from 41 Club, Farts and Round Table with 1 guest attended the annual 41 Club quoits competition on Wednesday 7 June at Beck Hole organised by our Club’s Sports Officer Darren. A member of the Beck Hole Quoits Club, Ivor, agreed to play making 6 teams of 2 players.

The only audience was a small flock of sheep who soon left for pastures new after witnessing the dire level of the quoit throwing which was so bad the Quoits Club members had to quickly cover the wood surrounding the clay pits with matting to avoid too much damage from the “woodpeckers” and “crabs” (quoits terms for the uninitiated) which were numerous.

After a delayed start to enable the players to seek refreshment from the Birch Hall Inn 4 of the scheduled 5 rounds of matches were completed before the midges became too much.

With the last round of matches abandoned by mutual consent everyone retired to the Birch Hall Inn for further refreshment (beer and pies) where Darren announced David A partnered by the ringer (another quoits term) Ivor to be the winners and who were both presented with a bottle of wine and a suitably engraved and beribboned gold coloured medallion reminiscent as someone pointed out to the ones which used to be handed out by a late and sometime Scarborough resident on a Saturday evening’s children’s TV programme. This may explain why the medallions were so cheap for Darren to buy!

Out of respect to the feelings of the other players the final places of the losing teams were not made public.

A good night’s entertainment enjoyed by all the participants save for the sheep. 

Despite the presence of a large notice and recent history several players (name names) availed themselves of the neighbouring woodland to relieve themselves prompting a warning from the Quoits Club members that if they received a complaint from any of the neighbouring properties there would be no invitation to play next year. We have been warned!

41 Club Quoits Correspondent 

A merry band of eight gathered in wet conditions for the archery.  We were unclucky with the weather.   It had been raining earlier and so everywhere was a little damp. The weather picked up just as we started with expert tuition and practice session.  
The competition  divided into  range targets and field targets .  Half the group did targets and the other half the range,  then to swapped over.  Scores were been kept by the archery captain John Naylor.
For the first half of the competition we had glorious sunshine . We all took a break and had drinks and snacks laid on by the archery team. Then resumed the competition but sadly halfway through the second half the heavens opened and everything was rained off.
John decided to do an average score inorder to determine a winner.  With only 4 points between the top 3 the results were
Winner.  Darren
Second . malcolm 
Third.    Gordon

Afterwords we headed to the Poacher’s Barn for a pint and pub meal.  The chef had stayed back for us.

Overall a good night was had by everybody .

Twas a foggy night in Scarborough for Chairman Charlie Tipple first meeting. It was as usual the last club meeting before the summer break, we met at the Bike and Boot in the town centre near the Spa Bridge.

We were suitably accommodated in a separate room and following table grace we were served up a Tapas Style meal including a wide variety of food choices with an emphasis on fish including mussels and calamari. 

There was a good turn-out but disappointingly a few empty chairs as ever.

Guests John Price and Andrew Hayes joined us for the evening. 

We ended the evening with the toast to RTBI and were invited to re-group in September for the start of the autumn programme.

The venue for tonight’s meeting was the Scarborough Yacht Club, where we were treated to an excellent 3 course dinner, washed down by various beverages of choice from the bar.

Prior to this, Dr Gordon Hayes, a local retired GP, gave us a brief report on just some of the memorable events from his career, all of which were factual and had not been ‘Doctored’ in any way.

On one occasion he sent a baby with a raised temperature that he had some concerns about into hospital, following a late night call out. A week later, he was surprised to find the infant still in a hospital ward, having been successfully treated for meningitis, confirming that his concerns and split-second decision had been more than justified. 

Gordon also handed round various instruments, ranging from a quite expensive ophthalmoscope to a humble tape measure. The latter was used to check anomalies in calf size, which could indicate a Deep Vein Thrombosis. Colin B had some input on the subject, but then being a farmer he does know about calves. 

The talk was very well received, as illustrated by the queue of 41 Club members that built up afterwards, wanting to talk about their various ailments…!

Ian Burnett gave a vote of thanks, and asked if Gordon would now be returning to work, following the recent budget change which allowed GPs (and others) to stow away more money into their pension pot without penalty. Gordon considered the question for 2 seconds then replied with a firm ‘No!’