Club Français de Sacramento

Hi all, 


It's time to get your teams together and register for the FPUSA Northwest Regionals - Select Triples on Sunday June 3rd. 


Please note that the closing date is May 31 @ 5PM. 
If you cant mail your registration in please email me @ mcgillfam@gmail.com. or call me @ 916 233 8327 .




Thank you  hope to see you there

Kevin McGill
Director of Petanque
Club Francais de Sacramento

La Pétanque Mendocino

About REBC                          The "Noyo Yoyos"                       Tournaments

Redwood Empire Boules Club

Hi all

Beat the heat and join us for a great weekend of petanque on the coast! Mark the weekend of June 23-24 on you calendar.

The REBC will host the 2012 Northwest Regional Men's and Women's Doubles on Sunday, June 24th, in Fort Bragg. This will be the first tournament at our new facility, and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible for the competition.

We invite everyone to make it a fun and relaxing weekend on the beautiful Mendocino Coast. As an enticement, we have scheduled the first annual Skip Wollenberg Memorial Open for Saturday, June 23rd. This will be a select format, so you can play with your partner for the regional, or a different partner if you like.

We are also introducing a feature that is in development, which we hope to make available for all tournaments through the FPUSA. We are calling it the "Petanque Partner Finder" for now. It is designed to help players who are looking for team partners do so easily and efficiently. Etienne Rijkheer of the Lamorinda club has done a great job developing the application. You will find a link to the "PPF" in the attached invitation, and on our website: www.redwoodempireboules.com. Even if you don't need to use it for this tournament, please take a look and give us feedback.

The attachment has a description of the events, travel and lodging information, maps, and the entry forms for each event. Everything you need to know is there. Please save the date and plan to come.

Best regards

Mickey Coughlin
President, REBC

Augusta, Maine

John Rolland Boca Tournament

Los Angeles/Topanga Canyon Event

Dear petanqueurs friends,

Please come to play at the exciting open doublette (2 players) petanque event in Los Angeles California.

WHERE: The tournament will take place in a fantastic location resembling Provence in Topanga Canon, a still”rural” area of Los Angeles. A charming bar restaurant is readily accessible from the court surrounded by the verdant vegetation of the canyon. Froggy’s is just a couple of miles from the Pacific Ocean and Malibu

The tournament is a doublette tournament open to anyone, a true open tournament.

The participation is $100 per team.

Team that have lost will be able to buy back (reenter the tournament) twice for a $40 extra fee each time they want to reenter (2 buy back maximum).Buy back are only possible before the quarter finals.

PRICES are $1500 + some of the entry fees depending of the participation.

DATE: 06/09/2012- tournament starts at 10:30 am-Inscriptions are open until 10 am.

LOCATION: Froggy's Topanga Fish Market Restaurant

1105 N Topanga Canyon Blvd
Topanga, CA 90290

ORGANIZERS AND CONTACTS: JEANNOT ZANELLA  818 259-1218

                                                         FELIX LEGRAND       310 339 5945

Feel also free to email at grouveyrol@sbcglobal.net if you have questions.

The tournament is organized outside of the FPUSA

tir au fer / carreau

LPM - Men's & Women's Tête a Tête

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Tête a Tête

Men’s Tournament / Women’s Tournament

                           Tournament Fee $7.00

Tournament Registration ends @ 9:30

Games begin @ 10:00

Cash Prizes

Three places in each tournament

(Bring your own lunch)

Note:  There is a foot race being held on the Civic Center Campus that morning. Parking will be difficult!  Please allow time for this complication.

Registration cut off and tournament start up times will be honored.

Be on Time!

For up-to-date-tournament information

www.cochonnetmarin.com or petanque-marin.blogspot.com     

Dave’s cell (707) 373-4539

Blog Updates

Please refer to some of the most recent posts, as some have been updated, either with new information, entry forms or cancellations due to forecasted inclement weather. Speaking of weather, several new and important cities, to where players might be inclined to travel, have been added to the weather list.

Also, if you have never been to Bryant Park in New York City, National Public Radio did a nice interview of the local boulistes who frequent the park. Matthew Broderick, as well, recorded a wonderful podcast of pétanque in the park. If you close your eyes, it is easy to feel as though you were there.

FPUSA Singles/Mixed Triples in Fresno

If you plan to play in the nationals coming up in Fresno, the following is information that might help you deciding where to stay.

Nationals in Fresno April 28 & 29

Stay 1 block from the pistes!

The Ramada Inn

324 E. Shaw Ave.

Fresno, CA. 93710

559-224-4040

$70 rate

under: Fresno Petanque Club

CODE #: FRES-00

Fresno/FPUSA Nationals

FPUSA 2012 Northwest Regional 65 Over/Under Mixed Doubles Tournament

On 15 April 2012, Lamorinda Petanque Club will be hosting the

2012 FPUSA Northwest Regional 65 Over/Under Mixed Doubles Tournament

at 480 St Marys Road in Lafayette.

If you are thinking of participating in this fun new tournament, one player needs to be female and the other male. Also, one player must be over 65 and the other under 65 on the day of the tournament. So, you can have a 70-year-old female and a 15-year old male as a team, for example.

We think that there are enough players of all ages in the area to achieve this 65 over/under mix, so get busy and organize a partner, and come along to this fun new competition.

Click here for the entry form...

For those of you who have never been to the Lamorinda Petanque Club, you will find directions and more elsewhere on this blog.

We need to have your entry form and payment by 12 April, so don't delay, act today!!

Heart of Austin Pétanque Club

HOT Petanque Tournament

On April 1, 2012, the Heart of Texas Petanque Club will host its annual Open Doubles Tournament at the Mueller-Browning Hangar in Austin, Texas. The Browning Hangar, built during the Second World War when there was a shortage of steel, is a historically unique structure remaining from Austin’s Robert Mueller Municipal Airport. The renovated aircraft hangar of glued laminated wooden arches has a clear span of approximately 130 feet, rising to a height of 37 feet which accommodates 15 petanque courts inside and another 8 courts outside with a playing surface of decomposed red granite.
Sign up while team openings are available and come to experience the thrill of playing in one of the world’s truly awesome venue as a boulodrome.. Teams will be coming as far as France, Morocco, Greece, Colombia, as well as national teams from TX, FL,CA,LA,Mi etc...
It is open and free for the general public to watch the games. We have food vendors on site.
PASS IT TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY. TO SIGN UP EMAIL ME BACK OR CALL 512 468 0957
THANK YOU.
--
A + LOVE Arsene
Arsene Dupen

Heart of Texas Pétanque Club

Rogue Bouligans of Williams Oregon

Valley of the Moon Pétanque Club -Ides of March

The Ides of March event has been cancelled due to forecasted inclement weather. For further information the VOMPC hotline is (707) 343-9465 or website www.vompc.org.

California Commemorative Cup- Slideshow

The California Commemorative Cup took place at LPM's Pierre Joske courts in San Rafael, last Sunday the 11th, and from all appearances, despite the threat of rain, was a resounding success.

Twenty teams from clubs as far away as Mendocino and Lafayette, not to mention Sonoma, Petaluma and of course our own, battled for the honor of having their names engraved on the cup.

In the end, LPM's Claudie Chourré and Lamorinda's Etienne Rijkheer triumphed over the field to win the honors. Their struggle was great, given that the competition was fierce, yet their perserverance and spot-on performances enabled several unexpected upsets.

LPM would like to congratulate, not only the winners, however all of the contestants who participated in making the competition exciting and the day enjoyable.

Dan Feaster of the Redwood Empire Boules Club took some fantastic images of the days events and can be viewed by clicking on slideshow.

California Commemorative Cup

Lamorinda Pétanque Club - Mardi Gras

EVENT CANCELLED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER

A Note From Nan Walter

Last Sunday Dan and I went to the oldest pétanque club in America La Boule d'Or of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for a tournament. We played on separate teams. The courts are veneralbe and as Finn can attest, very challenging to play. Dan's team came in third. There was a young French woman, a SF State student from Poitiers, who was doing a documentary film on the tournament there. She selected our team to follow for the day. Some of her footage is available on line. The team is yours truly; pointer; Higgins, tall guy in hat, former owner of Glendeven Inn, Little River, shooter and captain; Steve Jones, chiropractor, Petaluma, middle. We had a wonderful day and were pleased with our results. We were the only team to beat the winners! We also beat the second place team. Of the teams that finished in the money only Dan's third-place team beat us. The way the points are tallied accounts for our not finishing in the money.

The weather was gorgeous and much fun was had by all. Interesting to note, we were the only exclusively Anglophone team in the competition. Dan was the only native English speaker on his team. All the other teams were Francophone. Announcements were made in French and the handbill was in French.

Nan

La boule d'or contest from Alice Debois-Froge on Vimeo.

La Boule Cadienne de Lafayette

Last year, we had a very good time and enjoyed hosting you all. The
competition was good, the entry fees modest, the trophies and awards
were from France and supplemented by merchandise donated by Obut. The
demonstration rounds by Bernard Champey, a former world champion from
France, will again take place. The food here in Lafayette, we believe
is better than New Orleans and the hospitality, well, it's Cajun. The
tournament occurs in the middle of Lent, the time of year that lots of
restaurants have seafood dishes. Even steakhouses carry seafood
specials. It's also crawfish season. So bring an appetite .

Last year, we had built a two court addition to our existing two
courts. The courts were hard packed and difficult and challenging. The
new courts have mellowed and are softer now. We've added a fine layer
of sand to all of the courts and the result is consistent surface.
Additionally, we have an excellent area to play au sauvage. As you
remember, we play under live oaks so its usually cool.

We have a large french speaking community here and you can hear
francophones speaking Cajun and Creole Louisiana French as well as
accents from Europe and Africa.

If anyone needs to advice on where to stay, what to eat or what to
wear, then please contact me at this email address: Michael LeBlanc with a phone

number. I'll call you and we can make some plans for your visit.

Je souhaite que vous autres peux venir ici a Lafayette et jouer dans le tournoi.

Merci/Thanks

Mike LeBlanc

Valley of the Moon Pétanque Club - Calendar 2012

Join The Club

Click on form to highlight, then print.

Valley of the Moon Pétanque Club - 2012 Season

After our moderately mild winter, VOMPC is ready to begin our 2012 season of play with the traditional singles tournament on Sunday, February 26th. This year, we've changed it up a bit by offering chili and cornbread with all the accoutrements. Chefs Narin Garrett cooks a mean chili and Barbara Hall is queen of cornbread. A mere $5 lets you play and $7 gets you fed. Registration ends at 10:00 am. If there is interest and the numbers allow we will have a casual division. Director Peter Wellington will be at the helm. Please RSVP for chili by Thursday of this week via

the website vompc.org (event registration) or the Hotline: 707 299-0484.

Prior to the tournament we shall have a teeny-weeny court clean-up on Saturday, February 25th from 10:00 am to Noon, just to make sure the oak leaves don't outnumber the guests. PLEASE try to donate an hour of your time. Merci, Thank You.

If you're looking to play tomorrow, February 19th, our friends in Lafayette are hosting their "Sunday Funday." The Lamorinda Petanque Courts are located at480 St. Mary's Road. Registration ends at 10:00 am. Although the entry fee is $7. (that includes coffee & croissants), they are refunding bridge tolls for out-of-towners dubbing this their "Two-Buck Chuck" tournament: for $2 you get to chuck your balls around their beautiful courts. Call Etienne (925) 891-4756 for more details or email lampet@lamorindapetanque.com.

Next up is our first league of the season: Winter Mixed Doubles. People are already signing up so start forming your teams. This is for members only, one of the incredible benefits of joining the VOMPC. Six weeks of play, one game to 15 points, $20 per team entry fee. La grande finale (top four teams)and awards ceremony is slated forSaturday, April 21st, 11:00 am. The illustrious director Shannon Bowman is known for her unique prizes, another incentive. Registration ends March 1st so get cracking...

LASTLY, but not leastly, for those looking to travel for a challenge, Sarasota Florida is hosting the National Mixed Doubles (March 10th) and Mens & Womens Doubles (March 11th). Then in April, our friends in Fresno host the National Mixed Triples (April 28th) and Mens & Womens Singles (April 29th). For more information visit the FPUSA website (www.usapetanque.org).

Boule on everyone!

Valley of the Moon Petanque Club

March 2012 Tournament

LPM 2012 Calendar

2012 Bay Area & Beyond Calendar

Click on the desired page to view enlarged version

Bryant Park, NYC soundwalk

Here is a wonderful audio clip narrated by Matthew Broderick about the game of pétanque in Bryant Park located in New York City. It's done so well, that you can "see" the sights and sounds of the park he describes and actually imagine yourself to be there in person.
Bryant Park Soundwalk with Matthew Broderick

Santa Monica Update - Pétanque

Hymne des Fraternises- Joyeux Noel

Petanque club seeks funds for Zanesfield, Ohio project

Written by Nate Smith
Tuesday, 13 December 2011

The growing popularity of an obscure European lawn game has prompted a fundraiser to accommodate the increased number of people who wish to play.
Members of the Zanesfield Petanque Club seek donations to fund an expansion of the club’s lone existing petanque court at Hall-Fawcett Park.
“We’ve really outgrown the size that we have currently,” said Bo Johns, the club’s primary organizer. “We were getting 10, sometimes 20, people for our Wednesday night games and that can result in a lot of standing around for people.

For the complete article, click here

Palisades Park shuffle board courts now pétanque playground

PALISADES PARK — For a game that is far from familiar for most Santa Monicans, Mark Greenberg and his boules are starting to attract some attention.

It's Friday morning in Palisades Park and with the iconic Santa Monica Pier providing the perfect backdrop, pairs of tourists and locals in the middle of their workouts stop and stare as Geenberg crouches inside a small circle drawn in the sand. He pulls his arm back and lets fly a shiny metal boule (French for ball), sending it roughly 15 feet into the air. It lands in the dirt with a thud and rolls a foot toward a small, orange target.

Greenberg is pleased, not with the shot, but with the number of onlookers intrigued by the retired photographer's favorite pastime.

For the complete article, click here

Pétanque Euro-Cup 2011 (CB Monegasque - Duc de Nice )

Panier de Noël - La Boule d'Or

Pétanque in Fernandina

(published, November 10th)

This Saturday and Sunday, downtown Fernandina Beach will look and sound like any typical town on the French Mediterranean. More than 260 competitors (in teams of two) will be playing p/tanque (pronounced pay-tonk), the French cousin of horseshoes and "bocce," the Italian bowling game. Teams are coming from 23 states, Canada and Europe to compete in the 2011 Pétanque America Open, a unique international pétanque tournament held for the third year in a row on Amelia Island.
For the rest of the article, click here.

Park Reopens in Menlo Park

After a 13-month closure, Flood County Park in Menlo Park is set to reopen Saturday afternoon(Nov. 12) with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and celebration, San Mateo County officials said.

The 21-acre park has been closed since fall 2010, county officials said, to repair and replace water supply pipelines.

Aside from the park's petanque court and baseball diamond, all park facilities will be open and ready for use, including the seven picnic areas, play structure, horseshoe pits, and volleyball and tennis courts.

The opening celebration is free and will begin at noon, led by San Mateo County Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson and Assemblyman Rich Gordon, D-Menlo Park.

After the ribbon-cutting, park group Friends of Flood Park will host family-friendly activities until 3 p.m., including live music, face painting and a scavenger hunt highlighting the park's history and flora and fauna.

Officials said the annual cost to operate the park is about $374,201 and in the face of funding shortages the county is working to keep the park reopened into the next year. Park officials are working with the Board of Supervisors and looking into moving park operations over to the city of Menlo Park.

The park is located at 215 Bay Road in Menlo Park.

Meet the Fresno Pétanque Club

Pétanque comes to Santa Monica

Pétanque America Open 2011 - Results

2011 PA OPEN RESULTS

CONCOURS A
1 Marco Foyot / Bernard Martin
2 Jean-Pierre Subrenat / Damien Hureau
3/4
Mario Gagné / Ben Gauthier
Peter Mathis / Antoine Geoffroy
5/6/7/8
Alec Sweet / Karim Guennoun
Jean-Pierre Hemery / Phil Hemery
Juan Garcia / Yanick Lauhlé
Joseph Hassoune / Khalid Mesbah

Concours AA
1 Gali Shriki / Alice Aviran
2 Yehuda Cohen / Margalit Ossi
3/4
Ed Porto / Frank Pipal
Guy Labourie / Michel Crouzillat

Concours B
1 Andre Strong / Cynthia Stroud
2 Jo Ella Manalan / Pierrette Sucur
3/4
Lucien Rakotojaona / Thorn Viryasiri
Jon Claessens / Cory Milliord

Consolante A
1 Alain Brunette / Alain Gagnon
2 Dan Feaster / Ken Lee
3/4
Justin Bo Johns / Josh Kotsaris
Francis Chéru / Pierre Lallinec.

Consolante B
1 Nicolas Lacand / Caroline Lacand
2 Gilles Canesse / Eric Moutard
3/4
Narin Garrett / Kate Brideau
Bryan Mason/ Jason Deringer

Consolante C
1 Ernesto Santos / Lorissa Rinehart
2 Steven Matzkin / Simon Adamsdale
3/4
Erin McTaggart / Mike Menefee
Michel Ribet / Jeannot Ruperti

Consolante AA
1 Earl Lovell / Trevor Lovell
2 Tony Lawless / Max Mattes
3/4
Kenneth Chance / Irina Perry
Aaron Naegely / Judith Naegely

Consolante BB
1 Patrick Hayes / Kate Unkel
2 John Hodge / Colleen Hodge
3/4
Lori Nischan / Michel Nischan
Rommert Kruithof / Carine Eijsbouts

Consolante CC
1 Stephen Johns / Fernando Triana
2 James Banks / Nancy Banks
3/4
Anthony Alejandro / Cindy Alejandro
Bill Harris / Joel Shifflet

Pétanque America Open 2011

Click on image for more information

Petanque - The Greatest Game You Never Heard Of.

Here is a great book, just published, about pétanque. Actually the first english language book to be written about the sport.

Pétanque is the world's most egalitarian sport. It can be savored by almost anyone, regardless of age, gender or physical constraints. Yet the complex biomechanics of advanced throws take years to master. Game play is so obvious that even a child can follow it. Yet strategy is multilayered and elusive, revealed only through the insight of skills and experience.

It's refreshingly low-tech and economical. The equipment to outfit 4 to 6 players is 12 baseball-sized steel balls (boules) and a small wooden target jack which can be ordered on-line for less than $75.

Unlike its Italian cousin Bocce, Pétanque doesn't employ a formal, expensive, high-maintenance, groomed court. It's played on small patches of uneven, hard-packed dirt and gravel called "terrains." Bocce is a one dimensional bowling game, but ungroomed terrains force Pétanque players to reach for the sky and execute beautiful, soaring throws. Local club terrains are nearly indistinguishable from those that host international tournaments. Walking paths, public plazas, baseball infields and unpaved parking areas make fantastic terrains. That's why Pétanque is one of the world's most environmentally neutral sports. Terrains don't need water, fertilizer, pesticides, mowing, fossil fuels or maintenance. Multiuse terrains in a variety of shared public spaces are a great option for budget challenged Parks and Recreation authorities.

Also, the random bias of an ungroomed terrain is a great equalizer. Expert and novice may be teamed without diminishing intensity or the joy of competition. Pétanque is an ideal sport for athletically mismatched couples seeking to compete as peers, because style and tactics (usually) triumph over brute strength and unbridled aggression.

It's truly an international sport. Once again contrary to Bocce, Pétanque terrains, rules and terminology are universal. Whether you're in Paris, Cape Town, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City or San Francisco, with a few French words and phrases (used throughout the book) you will be embraced by locals and initiated into their Pétanque community.

That's why it's the greatest game that you never heard of - at least, until now...

From the Author

I love sports. From my early days as an iron pounding gym-rat I branched into technique orientated activities which demand precise bio-mechanics to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and to minimize repetitive motion injury: the astoundingly complex motion of a tennis serve, rolling a fully loaded 19-ft. long sea kayak in 3-ft. swells, the excruciatingly painful, yet artful hand and foot jams of a crack climber and yes, the beautiful flowing whip-like motion of Petanque's au fer shooting all require substantial time commitment and precise instruction to master and unerringly replicate.

That's why I was astounded to discover that a comprehensive Pétanque book had never been written in English or translated from the French. To compound the problem few U.S. Pétanque clubs offer formal or periodic throwing techniques and strategy classes, let alone a structured introduction to rules and etiquette which should be a prerequisite for every novice. This was either a huge oversight or a bizarre conspiracy to keep Pétanque information from the great unwashed masses of America. That's when the impulse to write the book first struck. Like a boxer slipping a punch, I pushed that impulse aside assuming that I simply didn't understand or appreciate the informal resources provided by fellow club members.

So I started playing at the esteemed Portland Pétanque Club and inquired about classes, hiring a coach and written training materials and was openly ridiculed by the regulars. Several months later it came as no surprise when I finally surrendered to the impulse and committed to writing this book that I was immediately shunned; none of the players that I spoke with had any interest in the project. I appealed to the president of the FPUSA (the American Pétanque Association) who is also a member of the Portland Pétanque Club to scour the U.S. membership for interested players - and as the saying goes, "the silence spoke volumes" or in contemporary terms, my emails went unanswered. Flat eyes and apathy greeted me each time I visited another west coast club to perform interviews and attempt to recruit collaborators.

The most disturbing aspects of American Pétanque that I discovered are its elitist and sexist attitudes which are rationalized as historical French cultural prerogatives. In opposition to formal mission statements many America Pétanque clubs are closed communities, accessible by invitation only. Most egregiously this applies to single women. Membership statistics are grossly inflated, in reality fewer than 1-in-5 regular U.S. Pétanque players are women. (I define "regular" as playing at least twice a month.) The Portland Pétanque Club illustrates the most abysmal example. Although they have 100 members, only one woman threw regularly during the entire summer of 2011; during that same period my Pig Iron Pétanque start-up group, which is only five miles from the Portland Pétanque Club, effortlessly recruited nine regular women players within the first six weeks of our inception. To hijack the famous Field of Dreams quote, "Build it and "they" will come, but only if "they" are invited, sincerely welcomed, respected and supported with periodic throwing and strategy training sessions."

The book started to take shape after a fall trip to Belgium and France which provided great exposure to both recreational and high-level play, and interviews with players who love the game and have no reservations about sharing their knowledge. What ultimately made the project so fulfilling and successful was the interaction of the members of my two start-up Pétanque groups. Together we drilled into Pétanque's essence and derived the critical techniques, strategies and etiquette that make it such an incredible sport and threw out all of the ridiculous misogynistic nonsense. The cynic may characterize this approach as "the blind leading the blind". My response is "res ipsa loquitur" (sorry, the benefits of a classics education) - the book "speaks for itself."

I would have greatly welcomed and appreciated support from the rank-and-file players and the American Pétanque Association, but that would have produced a much different book; a book that towed the line and supported the status quo - and I couldn't live with that. Consequently, it's been a bittersweet journey. But I speak for the entire membership of La Boule du Bono and Pig Iron Pétanque when I say that we are proud to help usher in a new inclusive, community-based era of "Pétanque American-Style". We hope that you come to love the game as much as we do.

The book is available at Pétanque America