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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Medals! Medals!Medals!

1st Annual Rally in The Valley (Oregon)

Lee Moore
Men's Doubles - Gold

Pete McGannon
Men's Doubles - Gold
Men's Singles - Silver

Craig McGarraugh
Men's Doubles - Bronze

Karen Fellows
Women's Doubles - Gold
Mixed Doubles - Silver

Connie Emerson
Women's Doubles - Gold
Women's Singles - Bronze

Lori Scott
Women's Doubles - Gold
Mixed Doubles - Gold
Women's Singles - Gold

Reta Nussbaum
Women's Doubles - Bronze

Les Scott
Mixed Doubles - Gold

Lance Thiede
Mixed Doubles - Bronze

Royal Oak - Skill Tournament
Alvin Hager
Men's Doubles - Silver
Mixed Doubles - Silver

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Court Update

Three quadrants of courts have been poured. They almost had to postpone the pour last night because of threatening lightning but they were luckily able to finish without incident. It's hard to see from this distance, but the center court no longer has that black cable sticking out of the sides. That's because the post tension has been applied.
 
Now prepping for the next courts.
Courtesy of Sue Hepler
 

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Medal Congratulations!!!

Idaho Senior Games
Lance Thiede  (earned another pair of sneakers!)
Men's Doubles - Silver
Men's Singles - Bronze
Mixed Doubles - Gold

Wyoming Senior Olympics
Barb Schmidt (a birthday to remember!)
Women's Doubles - Gold
Women's Singles - Silver
Mixed Doubles - Silver
LeRoy Schmidt
Men's Singles - Bronze
Mixed Doubles - Silver

Nanaimo Tournament
Theresa Orcutt
Open Women's Doubles - Gold
Open Mixed Doubles - Gold

Kansas State Sunflower Games
Dean Wineinger
Men's Doubles - Bronze

Washington State Senior Games
Bob Sester
Men's Doubles - Bronze
Lance Thiede
Men's Doubles - Silver
Mixed Doubles - Silver



Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The Journey has Been Long and Fruitful

                                                                         Photo courtesy of Sue Hepler
 With all the equipment in motion, you could barely hear a sound, the voice of the doubting Thomas has been silenced.

A Dream Being Fulfilled beyond Our Expectations


As the sole pickleball representative, I arrived at the courts at around 11:30 PM, the office called to advise that the work would be underway around midnight and that I was invited to the site. Sue and Don Hepler arrived shortly thereafter with camera and video in hand.  I wished I could have shared this moment, with some of our early pickleball players who worked tirelessly to grow the sport and to convince Palm Creek that this sport was the future.  Those far more deserving to be there than me.  The groundwork was laid long before many of you reading this even knew of Palm Creek Pickleball.

Just before my time in 2002 the club was formed and the first set of 4 courts "facing the wrong way" sprung into action.  Some of these members are still at Palm Creek.  Wayne Kennedy and others had Ken Reese spend an unquantifiable number of hours drawing blue prints as how to add new courts, which included moving a park model and many other amenities.  Palm Creek Management could endure the "noise makers" no longer and after a lot of club member diligence gave us courts 5-8 and turned courts 1-4 to face in the right direction.  By comparison courts 9-12 came with little effort.  The commitment of many club members poured the foundation. Nancy Brentano and Dick Walker by training new players, the warm welcome from Wayne and Sharron Kennedy to new players at the courts, Mary Duncan always looking to create "fun" at the courts and at the happy hours, Ted Duncan starting the " Shoot Out", Tom and Jeanne Gearhart endless of hours of organizing and assisting, bringing Round Robin sheets up to the office and saying "see".

We thank every club officer, every round robin captain, every person who helped maintain and improve our courts, every member who welcomed and trained new players every volunteer who in some way contributed to making Palm Creek Pickleball a premier destination.   

We thank Jim Dawson and Palm Creek Management and Ownership who has turned a dream into a reality.  Jim hired the best team possible and has personally supervised every step of the process.  Jim reviewed "every" step with us and answered every question last night, as we stood amid the bugs drawn to lights and the bats swooping down for dinner.

Jim advised that we had "a perfect night for concrete". The humidity was high and the wind was still.  We witnessed the precision of 13 cement trucks enter and leave to pour approximatley 143 yards of cement (approzimately 107 tons), leveled by a single "Screed" (as shown in picture) in a single night with a crew of 8 men.  

Don and Sue Hepler have documented every step of the entire process and also update regularly on their Blog current events at Palm Creek
If you are unfamilar with this Blog, now is the perfect time to take alook and see all the work in progress.










Monday, August 13, 2012

Open Play - Please Reply


Open Letter to All Club Members
I believe that our club has an organized play schedule that is second to none. With the new 24 courts our organized play offers many playing opportunities for all skill levels. I’ve seen no other schedule that comes close to our organized play. But there is one last element of the playing schedule that hasn’t been addressed yet and I’d like some input from the club members before the board makes a decision.

We need to make a plan for the open play hours on the courts. Our current open play works very well for the higher skill players. You come down in the morning, look for an in progress game with players of your level and challenge for the next game. This works very well for the high skill players and I have no intention of changing this. What needs to be addressed is the newer player that comes down to the courts in the morning looking for a game. They play a game or two with the morning group and quickly see they are over matched and do not return. I want to accommodate those players with courts they are comfortable playing on. Now that we have 24 courts we should be able to make courts available to all skill levels in the morning open play. I’ve come up with a couple of possible solutions that I would like to present. Please look them over and send me your comments or other solutions. These suggestions are for the morning open play hours from 7:30 AM to 10 AM.
The first possibility is to have 12 courts be challenge courts. These 12 courts would accommodate the current high skill level players that frequent the courts every morning. Life would continue as normal for this group. The other 12 courts would be available to the players with lesser skills. These courts would not be challenge courts. Play would be based on a sign in board. You show up in the morning and sign your name on the board. When an ongoing game ends the next 2 people on the list go in and play. It could also be the next 4 go in or winners stay on and split. There are several variations of how this could be done.  Many clubs have this as their only way of open play and it works very well for the newer players. If we have fewer people using the sign in system we could readjust the number of courts for each group.
The other possibility is assigning skill levels to different sets of courts. Courts 1 thru 8 could  be 4.0 plus, courts 9 thru 16 could be 3.5, courts 17 to 24 could be 3.0/2.5. The number of courts and skill levels assigned are just to start discussion. They could be changed to any combination. Each group could decide if they want to use the challenge system or sign in board.
These are my two suggestions. I’m open to any other possibilities or tweaking of these suggestions. We need to have an open play policy that brings the newer players to the courts in the morning.  That is the one part of our program that is missing and I would like to fix it. Please email me you suggestions.

Mark Nelson

President Palm Creek Pickleball Club

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

New Courts Photo Update

More Great Pictures and Comments Courtesy of Sue Hepler

There is some heavy duty work going on by the courts. The machines are all hooked to GPS units and are making sure the ground is level.

As the two tractors level it off, one poor guy goes over everything with a hand rake. 

Looks like they're building the forms for pouring the concrete

Monday, August 6, 2012

1st Annual Bend Pickleball Tournament

And the winners are:

Craig Mc Garraugh        Gold       Men’s Doubles 3.5, 3.0

Bob VanderLinden        Silver     Men’s Doubles 3.5, 3.0

Karen Fellows                       Gold        Women’s Doubles 3.5
                                                     Bronze       Mixed Doubles 3.5, 3.0

Pete Mc Gannon          Silver     Mixed Doubles 4.0

Rhoda Zaph                Silver     Mixed Doubles 4.0
                                 Gold       Women’s Doubles 4.0

Ed Obermeyer             Gold       Mixed Doubles 4.5

Connie Emerson          Bronze   Women’s Doubles 3.5

Laurie Scott                 Gold       Women’s Doubles 4.0

Irene Fraties             Bronze  Women’s Doubles 5.0,4.5



Click on the link to see Palm Creeker interviewed
Link was submitted by Verna Moore

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Oh Canada

Congratulations to Palm Creek Medal Winners who competed in the Pickleball Canada National Open Championship!


Colin Caldwell           Silver        Mixed Open
John Jetelina             Gold         Men's Doubles 70+
                                    Bronze      Mixed Doubles 65+
Olga Jetelina             Gold         Women's Doubles 65+
                                    Bronze     Mixed Doubles 65+
Brenda Jmaeff          Silver        Women's Doubles 55+
                                    Silver        Mixed Doubles 55+
Dan Jmaeff                Silver         Mixed Doubles 55+
Wayne Kennedy       Gold          Men's Doubles 70+
Vera Loskot               Gold          Women's Doubles 70+
                                    Gold          Mixed Doubles 70+
Teresa Orcutt           Silver         Mixed Open
                                    Bronze      Women's Open
Dave Touchet           Gold           Men's Doubles 60+

A link has been added on the Menu for - Pickleball Canada, many of our Club Members have dual membership in this organization and the USAPA.

All club members who win medals during the summer season, e-mail the information to me for the Blog! 
RosemaryReese@aol.com






                                 

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Growing the Sport

My Retirement was one of our tournament sponsors this year. They are working with USAPA to grow the sport
As many of you are now activley running tournaments during the summer season you may find this webinar useful



Growing the Sport
of Pickleball

Please join us for a brief webinar on Friday, August 3rd.
We will be discussing the future of the sport and how My Retirement Direct is growing Pickleball through new sponsorships and exciting marketing initiatives.
You don't want to miss it.
Friday, August 3 - 11 am PDT
https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/370721167

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