On the first day of Christmas, the Bowmen gave to me...

... frolics at the MB parteeeeeee!
Folks, don't forget that this Saturday (11th) heralds the MB Festive Frolics, from 8:00 at the club (there's an invite attached below). We'll strut the night away to Swingology, and have a hearty feast of food and drink too. If you're planning on coming along, please let Sue know. We'd also be ever so grateful if you'd bring some scran as a contribution - even if you just roll through the door with a packet of cheesy Wotsits it'll be much appreciated (and I for one'll be a happy girl...)

On the second day of Christmas the Bowmen gave to me, free cash in the MB kitty...
Last minute Christmas shoppers ahoy... If you sign up for EasyFundraising (via http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/mbltc), 15% of the total value of your purchase is donated to the MB. For nada. Nottin'. Just sitting on yer er5e and clicking 'click'. So, if you're buying from any of 200 stores and websites, including Amazon, Argos, M&S, eBay and John Lewis, they'll chuck back 15% of your prezzie price into the MB pot. Please tell your friends, family and any other shopaholics you know too, and we'll be building a superbowl stylee stadium and six lane motorway access through the Seffy Park lake before you know it. Happy shopping! As if you needed an excuse ;-)

On the third day of Christmas the Bowmen gave to me, croquet in a style com-e-dy*
Scratch this in your brand shiny new 2011 diary... A day of mulled wine, Scouse, chilli, croquet and fresh air to blow the new year cobwebs away. It'll be on Sunday 2nd January from around 11am, running into candle-lit (and quite possibly double-vision handicapped) croquet by the end of the day, as James has invented a croquet hook candlestick holder doncha know - which will be tastefully packaged and available for sale soon from JML, Wilkinsons and selected branches of the Asda soon. Or maybe not. But one way or t'other, it'll be a day with a difference, lots of fun, plenty of warming wine and absolutely no expectation of technical ability or finesse (*although I mentioned 'comedy croquet' to James, which was apparently a bad choice of words. He's rather good at it.) So, gather friends and family and bring them down for a bit of a do. We're also working on a 'crazy croquet' brand, complete with ornamental windmills, for future play......... All will be revealed in good time.

Commitment shy?

Well, me too, but sometimes saying 'yes' just feels nice. And we've still got a couple of outstanding positions on the committee this year; social secretary and pavilion person are still up for grabs, as is the role of the ladies' captain. So, if you'd like to get involved and have your say in how the club's run - and who turns out on the courts - then let us know. Not that we're at all bored of each others' company (although we've run out of variations on our limited repertoire of tennis-related innuendoes...) but we'd really like to encourage some newer members onto the committee. Come on board, join us... It's not too onerous - we have about four or five committee meetings a year, plus the AGM, and have got some really important and exciting decisions to make at the mo, which will decide the future direction of the Bow Hoes.

Remember remember, the 5th November

OK, so the last thing we'd want to see is a lick of flames anywhere in the vicinity of the mighty Bow, and it's been a while since we burned any effergies of dissenters (although it's a trend I can see making a comeback), but Bommie Night's a Friday this year, so we'll be throwing the doors open and making the most of the best spot in the park. Fireworks will be lighting up the sky from 7:30, so come down to the MB first, keep warm, sup some hot wine or soup and make the most of our location, location, location.

World Cup feevah

Drink beer from lunchtime, let your work attendance plummet and watch England lose on a penalty shoot out. Must be World Cup time. And now you can speculate on the outcome of every game-of-two-halves/Christmas-tree formation/totally-against-the-run-of-play-goal/good touch for a tall fella/*insert your own cliche here* at the World Cup. Absolutely no footie knowledge is required (boys, you know who you are) for our World Cup competition, so please get 'em out there and get guessing.

It's really quite simple - you predict who's gonna win what, for every group game and the knock-out stages, and tot up points along the way. And then - if you're any good - you'll earn yourself some cash.

Entry's £4 each, and the more people we get involved, the more money there'll be in the prize kitty. Half of the cash goes to the MB, and the other half all goes back in out in the way of prizes. So get your workmates/ friends/ family/ on the case.... Please email me at fiona@capsica.net for a (pretty-self-explanatory) spreadsheet of all of the games - entries need to be received by June 10th pleez.

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. Liverpool style

Now, it can't have escaped your notice how manicured the grass is looking, and you might have spied an assortment of hefty new implements neatly lined up in the clubhouse. That's because we're welcoming our sister act, the Liverpool Croquet Crew, aboard the Good Ship Bowmen. Because if it's good enough for Wimbledon, it's good enough for the Bowmen. So croquet will soon be played on our manicured lawns - mainly on afternoons in the week I believe, which generally means there'll be more people around down at the club, which should help keep things busy and lively and secure.


James has been slogging away for hours getting the pitches up to scratch - the area's just been reseeded, and over the next few days fertiliser will be going down. It's going to be cordoned off to give it a chance to all start bloomin', but please make sure that you don't walk on any of the bits which are marked out - you'll get some nasty cross-contamination with the chemicals, and it's pretty nasty stuff whether you're a weed or not. So if you handle anything that's been on the ground, pleez wash your hands before eating / drinking / licking your fingers (or anything else you've exposed to it).


Bowmen members are of course invited to play, although I'm not sure swearing's allowed in croquet (just me then?!), and we look set to get a good few new members via the Croquet Crew, which all helps secure the club's future. And by the Bank Holiday play will be ready to commence. So if you fancy swinging a mallet instead of a racket, pop down this weekend and give it a whirl/ twirl/ hurl - James will be organising taster sessions for all MB members, so make sure you take the chance to try it out...


You can see more details at www.liverpoolcroquet.co.uk

Summer dreams, ripped at the seams?

Con-Dem-nation, England underperforming in the World Cup, the wettest summer since - ooh, last summer?? So they might not ALL happen, but you can cheer yourself up by getting your sticky summery mitts on some mega prizes in the MB summer draw, including a mega Canon Ixus digital camera, Ralph Lauren clothing, a digital radio, swanky new haircut or a stack of vino. Meryl's been busy organising quality prizes, and is the person you need to speak to to get hold of books of tickets (merylk@talktalk.net) Tickets are £1 each - needless to say, the more you buy, the greater your chance, and the more money we make for the Bow. Perfecto!

Sunday Symphony

The world-famous Crosby Symphony Orchestra are playing at the Phil on Sunday 11th July, with a little bit of Dvorak, Britten and Elgar for your delectation. Ken Dodd will be narrating the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, and the rest of the choices are also accessible, lively and fun... We'll get £5 for every ticket we sell, so if you fancy going along, or have got your eye on a gap in the market to sell tickets to, please contact the man with the plan, Guy Soulsby, at g.p.soulsby@blueyonder.co.uk.

Read all abaht it, read all abaht it.......

People. After hours (and yes, I really do mean HOURS) of committee fun this week, it appears there're a few things goin' dahn which we should tell you about. So, here goes....

We'll be having another swash-buckling Kenny-from-South-Park-meets-Andy-meatloaf-Roddick American tournie on Saturday 27th March to get everyone in the mooooood for the new season. There'll be more details about it in the impending-wait-fer-it-wait-fer-it-ooh-the-anticipation-NEW-SEASON newsletter, but if you fancy wielding a racket like a lightsaber, drop me an email and I'll put you on one of me lists.

And to our next item.

Following the increased numbers of ragamuffins and urchins in the park in the wake of 2009's recession-induced rutting season, there are lots of eagle-eyed CityWatch types on patrol. And seeing as they've had some complaints about the number of cards in the park, we thought it was our duty to remind you that you can only park on the left hand side (as you drive towards the club), and you need to make sure you've got your hazards on when entering the park. Parking permits also run out at the end of the month, and you won't get a new one until you've paid up and filled in a new membership form for 2010. And here ends the lesson.

You might also like to know that there'll be an outdoorsy clean-up of the courts and grounds will be on April 10th, and will once again include a tasty lunch. But we'd like to reassure all members that there's no truth in the rumours that it'll be made entirely from things that grow around the clubhouse.

And you should have also heard on the jungle drums that team practices start tomorrow. Yes, that's TOMORROW (Saturday 13th), from 1pm. Be there, or be consigned to the annals of H.I.S.T.O.R.Y.

And finally.....

If you're not already hard at it, pleez keep on collecting Echo Wish tokens. We're doin' OK, can still do better.... Meryl is our coordinator extraordinaire, so if you've been foraging the wilds of Echo-land, please let Meryl know (merylk@talktalk.net) so she can take them off your hands.

Start buying the Echo today to win MB cash...

The Echo's Wish campaign starts today, with tokens being printed every day for the next eight weeks, until April 9th. Mersey Bowmen has been accepted into the pot... Now all we need to do is start collecting tokens. So please ask your friends, family and colleagues to start stockpiling tokens for you.

There's £50,000 up for grabs, which is allocated depending on the number of tokens we collect - the more we get, the bigger our share of the pie. We've got eight weeks to collect as many tokens as possible, with the cash we raise going towards work on the clubhouse, so we can increase Ritchie's coaching programme.

Any questions, give me a shout. You can email me at fiona@capsica.net...

In the meantime, if we can rally as many people as possible to start collecting tokens for us, and hang on to them for now - Meryl Kelbrick is collecting them for the MB, so we'll also update you and tell you about the best way of getting them to her. Or you can just follow the instructions in the Echo. Thanks folks!