NEWSLETTER – 11 MARCH 2016

SAVE THE DATE

Friday 11th March – Currie Cup Friendly Lions VS Valke
Thursday 17th March – St Patrick’s Day
Thursday 17th March – Wine Club
Friday 18th March – Pirates Rugby Friendly VS JHB Police
Friday 1st April – Club Draw
Sunday 3rd April – Gin & Tonic Festival

THIS WEEKEND AT PIRATES

This Friday we are proud to be hosting the U19 Lions rugby practice from 12pm and then a Currie Cup friendly match between the Lions & Valke. The game starts at 3pm.

From 12pm on Saturday, we have the 3rd and 8th cricket teams playing matches.

On Sunday from 9am, we have Premier Leaugue cricket and the 3rd playing. Come down and watch some good cricket.

MEMBERS

Appealing to any members who have any soccer balls they want to donate for Vuleka school who train at Pirates 3 times a week.

Please note we will be closed on Good Friday, 25th March.

A BIG THANKS

Most of you who frequent the Pirates Grill will know Meison, one of the Pirates Grill waiters.

When Meison first joined us, we noticed that he seemed to have a great deal of trouble seeing properly, bringing items up very close to his face to read them.

Our good Samaritan, Glynis Mauldon came to the rescue and phoned her optometrist, Irmgard Froentjes-Wright, from Lumina in Sandton City, to ask her what could be done.

Lumina offered to see Meison with pleasure and he had his eyes tested. It was found that his vision was dreadful and he had a very high prescription. Technically he could only see about 10cm from his face without glasses!!!!
Spectacles were made up for him, with special thin lenses into a suitable frame. When he collected them, he was completely overwhelmed, as for the first time he could actually SEE.

The staff at Lumina were so kind to him and bent over backwards to make this a wonderful experience. So from all of us at Pirates, we would like to thank Irmgard and her staff for all their help, advice, expertise and kindness towards Meison. Lumina did not charge Meison or Pirates anything for this fantastic service.

THANK YOU LUMINA. Anyone looking for a good kind optometrist with fantastic service please contact:

LUMINA- EYECARE BY VISION CENTRE
Shop BC34A Sandton City
( Banking Mall level opposite Haagen Daz and the Apple iStore)
5^th Street
Sandton
Tel: 011-784-2513

BOWLS

Both the Wednesday and Saturday League seasons are now behind us with our final match being played last Saturday .

The Wednesday league side just missed the play-offs by virtue of a loss in their last match . However they performed well throughout the season and ended up 6th in their league .
Our Saturday side finished off with a bang by beating Wanderers by 14 points to 4 in their penultimate match and then defeating the log leaders , Northcliff Country Club , by 12 points to 6 .

Our membership drive continues. We again had a dozen players from another club play with us on Sunday morning and we have every hope that they will join on a permanent basis . We also signed up two new young members on Saturday so our drive seems to be showing some results.

We wonder what the rugger buggers and hockey section ( guys and gals ) do with themselves during their off-season. We would love to have them come and play with and for us and are more than happy to provide whatever coaching / guidance that is required. Our league season normally starts around the last weekend in October and runs until the end of November where after there is the Xmas break . Things pick up again towards the end of January and finish off early in March . Assuming that next season’s league structures remain unchanged we will play 11 matches.

We are aiming to enter two Saturday league sides , one ladies Saturday team and two Pennant league ( also Saturdays ) sides next season . The Pennant league caters for mixed sides , brand new bowlers / existing club members that can’t yet get a game in one of the other sides and is generally a good place to start . We are also hoping to enter two sides ( mens ) into the Wednesday afternoon league but this will obviously depend on player availablity .

We don’t hibernate during the winter months as we use this time to play all our internal club competitions . We also have teams taking part in competitions run by other clubs . We have been traditional supporters of these competitions for many years and are regarded as very popular yet reliable and competitive.