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.