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This category is for the newsletter posts – as these are automatically emailed out to mailing list subscribers, it should only be used for important announcements and updates.

Registrations and Website updates

By Paul Stone on 22nd March 2024 in Newsletter

A couple of updates for you….

Registration Night – we had a good night getting teams signing on and by Roger’s count (he’s the Treasurer so I hope he’s good at counting 😀 ) we believe we have 54 teams signed on at present. Now some of last years teams have had to move venues, some we lost but we do have a couple of new entrants in Grove RFC and Horse and Jockey (S-in-the-V) and we have some venues with new 2nd teams. All positive stuff so thank you for supporting your league.

We have a few more spaces left therefore – as we said at the AGM ideally we’d like to be at the top end of the 50 teams rather than the bottom as there are less byes for sections so if you’re thinking of starting a team or a 2nd/3rd team at a venue you still have some time because….

We are now CLOSING registrations on the 30th March so if you are keen to take part get in touch as soon as possible via support @ abingdonauntsally.com.

If you want to know what happens next take a look at our process and you’ll be able to appreciate the work that goes on in the next month.

Our Banking – as we said at the AGM we are moving our accounts from one of the ‘big four’ to a building society. We have had such poor service from the current bank they’ve paid us some compensation for the 3-6 months trouble it has caused us. This is one of the reasons we couldn’t accept BACS payments this year. I’ve told Roger not to hold his breath for the compensation judging by past performance. Who knows next year we might even take card payments on Registration Night….

Website – every year we have issues with people not being able to login successfully to the website to enter scorecards – I have to say this isn’t always ‘human error’ as there’s an automatic lockout if you get it wrong 3 times. One of the reasons for this and why I have had to withdraw the self-registration process is because we were getting a few hundred duff accounts being requested each month – extra work rejecting them which I didn’t need. So we need to adopt a new subscribe process SO if you want to subscribe please drop an email to support and I will register you manually with the email address that you send from.

On the point of emails if you already have an account please make sure your profile has a valid email address registered. Once you login you can edit your profile in the top right of the screen – hover over your name and click Edit Profile.

EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS: One of the fixes I’ve recently applied is to make the mail system work again (hopefully some of you will get this post notified by email!) and this works by the address stored in your profile.

In the last week you may have noticed that the site had gone ‘not secure’ for a couple of days – this relates to the HTTPS encryption certificate expiring which, although we had paid the bill a few months earlier didn’t get actioned (by us or our hoster). This is now fixed and didn’t affect the data on the site.

InterLeague Match tonight – after stating on national radio last month that we didn’t have any interleague competitions (doh!) we are attending Banbury tonight to take part in their organised 8 league x 8 player knockout. It was a bit short notice but I’m sure with the crew we’ve cobbled together we’ll give a good account for Abingdon Aunt Sally. You’ll never know if you don’t give it a go!

I’ll post further details at the weekend when I’ve recovered. If you’re in the Banbury area and want to pop along to support email chairman @abingdonauntsally.com for details.

Thanks for reading this far and have a great weekend.

You know it’s good when you hear the wood!

A Doll or Not A Doll? That is the question

By Paul Stone on 28th January 2024 in A Chairmans musings, Newsletter

At our recent AGM one of the teams made a, lets call it an ‘observation’, that certain calls which were obviously dolls were not called. Now calling is, like any other refereeing, the most controversial part of any game. In Aunt Sally, ignoring foot faults, or extra tape on sticks, or handicaps or… well one of them.. anyone could do better than the person doing the job. Obviously, that goes without saying. IKR! Funny how there are always a lack of volunteers to do the job when the Captain asks though!

If you get your team in that situation of really dubious calling ideally the Captains should discuss it and if necessary change the caller. Keep it sporting. If all else fails walk away from the match and report it to the Committee. We don’t want to lose teams in the league but neither can we tolerate deliberate cheating and bringing the game into disrepute – that’s not good for any of us.

So back to dolls.

I was taught that if the doll goes up and backwards that it’s a doll. If it goes straight up it can’t be, I mean that’s just physics! – unless the stick lands on the top of the doll which would be a bit obvious. If a doll falls forward, again it can’t be a doll unless the stick has obviously hit it from behind – and I’ve seen quite a few of those where you think the stick has missed and then knock! – You know it’s good when you hear the wood.

For the avoidance of doubt it’s worth mentioning any stick that hits the ground first then the doll is not a doll. Any doll that is struck and lies down on the swivel is not a doll – similarly a doll that upends and stands upside down for a split second (yes I’ve seen that!). Any doll that falls off with a stick nowhere near is not a doll. Technically, any stick that hits something else (like an overhanging tree) and hits the doll is not a doll – but I think most would count that as a lucky shot!

The swivel pad SHOULD be smaller than the base of the doll – the doll should overhang all round by a small amount. This placement allows the doll to be hit without hitting the swivel if it’s a low shot but it had to be a solid direct movement of the doll. Again in my view if the doll has fallen and the swivel hasn’t moved then it must likely have been a good hit. There are of course some players (generally with heavier sticks thrown hard, usually round arm) that can smack the doll right on the end by the swivel pad and the doll will fly and the swivel will spin – this is a doll because it’s propelled with force off the swivel hitting that overhang – just mind your ankles for the stick rebound!

I find it best to focus on the bottom front of the doll right on the swivel where most of the controversy might happen. It also helps if there’s a darker background than the doll so I tend to adjust my position as caller to suit. Let’s face it – obvious dolls are easy to count – other ones come with practice and experience. This is why sticking up is also a call learning opportunity and the caller can ask the sticker up for an opinion if unsure.

Very early on in my AuntSallyTV ‘career’ I recorded a couple of doll strikes so people could see the difference. Check them out

On the actually calling again it needs to be repeated that it helps everyone (especially those filling in the scorecard/board) that the number of dolls is called out loud and the total repeated at the end of the players throw (assuming they missed with the last stick!). This leaves no room for error or controversy and the caller’s decision is final.

Don’t forget Registration Night is on the 11th March so get your Team and Competition forms off the homepage and sign on!

Twixmas – a good time to think about the AGM!

By Paul Stone on 28th December 2023 in Newsletter, Special Events

As it’s now Twixmas (between Christmas and New Year apparently!) and that means it’s fast approaching AGM time on the 15th January AND rule 26 says any items for the AGM need to be in writing to the Chairman 14 days before, you might like to get a glass (or mug) of something, sit down for a bit and think of how we can improve our marvelous game.

Please get your suggestions, comments or observations in to the Chairman either by email chairman@abingdonauntsally…. or comment on this post as it appears on our Facebook @AbingdonAuntSallyLeague or facebook.com/OfficialAbingdonAuntSally and if you’re not following why not? 🙂

Of course, if you’d like to help run the league, even in a small way, we will always welcome new (or old, or young) faces onto the committee – so have a think about what you could help with even if you don’t want to be officially a committee member.

At the moment we really could do with a website revamp so if you know, or know someone who knows WordPress/MySQL/PHP come and help – otherwise we’ll have to pay someone – more at the AGM. If you don’t have technical skills we still need people to help organise and administer the league – most of the effort happens from Registration Night (11th March) to league start (May) then competition organising and then run up to Presentation Night so it’s not an all year effort for everyone.

Oh and if any teams have trophies from 2019 or 2022 please let us know – we didn’t get all the trophies back in for Presentation Night this year which means we are losing track partly due to the disruption of non-playing previous years. It’ll be a shame if we have to charge the previous winners/runners up for replacements.

In the meantime I hope you’ve all had a great break and enjoy the New Year,

Looking forward to 2024, hearing from you and seeing you at the AGM,

Paul Stone
Chairman

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