New Chairman for British Curling

The board of British Curling, the company that manages and develops elite curling in Britain, has appointed Colin Pearson as its new chairman. Since the resignation of Mike Gillespie last spring, the organisation has had a caretaker head in Hew Chalmers, see here.

Today's press release states, "The selection and recruitment of the new chairman involved UK Sport, sportscotland and the British Curling board. Following an interview process, Pearson was identified as the preferred candidate. The panel’s decision has been communicated to the company’s members today (Friday 9th September).

Pearson brings to the role a wealth of experience gained working in sport over the last 30 years. His career has included an 18-year period with the national agency for sport, sportscotland, in various senior sports development roles. He has strong directorship and chairman experience, having served since 2008 as chair of Basketball Scotland’s executive board and as a director of the national golf participation programme for young Scots, clubgolf.

Pearson also held roles in local authority sports operations and management in both Scotland and England, and most recently he has spent two-and-a-half years with the Professional Golf Association in a strategic development role. Pearson, from Edinburgh, was introduced to curling by his father and has enjoyed playing at clubs in Fife and Midlothian."

Pearson said, “As someone who has worked in sport my whole career, I am very much looking forward to a fresh challenge in a sport that I have great affection for. Preparations for the next Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014 are already underway, so I’m ready to start working with our members and partner organisations immediately to ensure our athletes are given the best support possible in the run up to Sochi.”

I wish Colin every success in his new position. Let's hope that he will nurture a culture of openness and transparency in British Curling, words that have not been in the vocabulary of that organisation in past years. One priority must surely be to get the British Curling website up and running again.

Photo of Colin is courtesy of British Curling

Where is British Curling headed?

British Curling is an enigma! In the run up to the Vancouver Olympics it was the key player. The organisation, under the chairmanship of Chris Hildrey, was charged with all aspects of the selection, preparation and performance of the British curling teams. In theory, British Curling is the body recognised by the British Olympic Association/British Paralympic Association and UK Sport as responsible for the preparation, selection and performance of the teams for those events which require the participation of a 'British' curling team i.e. the Olympics, World University Games and the Youth Olympics. But read on!

A new era dawned last year with the appointment of a new board (see here), with Mike Gillespie as Chairman. The Royal Club has a bigger stake in the organisation, Willie Nicoll having a seat on the board and Bruce Crawford being the chief operating officer.

Over recent months it has been apparent that all is not well.

For one thing, the organisation's website (here) has been 'down for maintenance' for a while. Then there is the (unconfirmed) rumour that all the Olympic money from UK Sport - more than £2,200,000 - has gone to the sportscotland Institute of Sport, and preparations for Sochi are already being masterminded by Dave Crosbee and his team there. What role then for British Curling?

Then last month it was announced, see here, that Mike Gillespie had resigned as Chairman of British Curling. I believe he is heading abroad to work.

The British Curling Board met recently to discuss the way forward. Adverts will appear soon for the position of chairman, with interviews scheduled for early August.

In the interim, Hew Chalmers will head up the organisation. Safe hands indeed. However, Hew has indicated that he will not be applying for the BC chairman's post as he is on the Board of the British Olympic Association (see here), and there could be conflict of interests at BOA board level.

I had hoped that with the appointment of the new board back in December that British Curling would no longer be the 'secret society' it had been. Some hope!

Hew has promised that the selection of a new chair will involve 'an open transparent interview process'. That will be a good start. We all will be looking to see what role British Curling will have in the years ahead.

New Faces at British Curling

You will know that British Curling has received £2,288,900 from UK Sport for the period between now and the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2014. That announcement was made on December 10, see here.

I was interested to know just who would be responsible for administering this huge sum. Here is the information that I have found out and that British Curling does not want you to know, given that the AGM was held earlier this month and there has not been any official release.

Mike Gillespie - Chairman
Willie Nicoll - Director (Willie is currently Chairman of the Board of the Royal Club)
Hew Chalmers - Director (Hew was Director in the last cycle)
Chris Hildrey - Director (Chris was Chairman in the last cycle)
Dawn Watson - Finance Director
Bruce Crawford - Chief Operating Officer (Bruce is also the CEO of the Royal Club)

Two new names are David Gaffney who has an RBS partnership role (and is responsible for media relations) and Nigel Holl who was involved in the set-up and establishment of the Scottish Institute of Sport (in Mike Hay's time). He is an active curler at Stirling and is currently CEO of Scottish Athletics.

Dave Crossbee, the new Performance Director of the curling programme at the Scottish Institute, will report at board meetings.

I am sure someone will let me know if I have got anything wrong.

The British Curling website is here. Don't be looking for confirmation of what I've written above here, where it should be. There's nothing. I say again, LOUDLY, British Curling is a secret society, and that should concern us all. I hope the new directors are listening. This is our money that they are charged with looking after. Let's have some transparency, and openness.

Funding for Elite Curling

Wow! I've just received this press release:

"SPORT MORE THAN DOUBLES ITS FUNDING FOR ELITE CURLING

British Curling is to receive a total funding award of £2,288,900 from UK Sport for the period between now and the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2014. British Curling, which manages and develops elite curling in Britain, yesterday (Thursday, December 9) received notice of the funding allocation from UK Sport, the body responsible for investing public funds – from both the National Lottery and the Exchequer – in high performance sport.

The award more than doubles the funding British Curling received in the previous four-year cycle, and will fund the delivery of a performance programme for the sport during the current Olympic/Paralympic cycle, culminating in 2014 in Sochi, Russia.

Mike Gillespie, British Curling’s chairman elect, said: “We are delighted with the news of UK Sport’s funding award, which will help ensure British curlers can achieve their potential and continue to deliver medals on the world stage over the course of the next four years. Given the current economic backdrop, we recognise more than ever the responsibility that comes with this funding and the opportunity it gives us to further develop elite curling athletes in the UK.”

Dave Crosbee, British Curling’s newly appointed performance director, said: “This is a huge shot in the arm for the sport in the next four years, and is recognition of the consistently world-class results achieved by British curlers over the past four years. Working closely with our partners at Sportscotland and the home nation governing bodies, we can now start to develop the programmes that we hope will deliver sustained success over the coming years.”

See my recent Editorial for some of the changes which this money will go towards implementing.

Surveys and questionnaires

These days I'm being asked a lot for my opinion. In the last month I've been requested to fill in 'customer satisfaction' surveys on behalf of two different hotel chains I've used, and by two large companies from which I've made purchases online. I must admit that I'm always somewhat dubious about such things. If I am not happy, I usually make my feelings quite clear at the time! And I always harbour the suspicion that information I may disclose on completing such surveys may be used for marketing purposes in the future. Hence these requests usually go into the wastebin.

Still, feedback questionnaires have their uses - they were an important part of my life as a university teacher some years ago! It helps if you know that the people asking the questions definitely want to know your feelings and will be prepared to act on them.

So I was very pleased to see that Bruce Crawford, the new CEO of the Royal Club, has put together some questions for members, the answers to which will help the Royal Club to develop its work and plans for the next four years from April 2011. The link to the survey was in Hit and Roll, the November Email Newsletter, which can be read here, if you don't subscribe.

Bruce says, "We are currently looking for feedback from members on the things that we currently do or that you would like us to do in future. Once we have reviewed the comments to this survey we will produce a short summary of these views and publish this on the website before moving to the next steps of developing the strategy."

The survey questions include:
1. What do you think we do well, what works in curling or what does not need to change?
2. What do we not do well, what do we need to change, what doesn't work in curling?
3. What new things should we be doing for member curlers and curling generally?
4. What do you see as the problems that face curling in Scotland today?
5. Looking forward, what three things would be your priorities for the Royal Club to work on?
6. The Royal Club has an international role as the 'Mother Club' of world curling. What activities, initiatives or responsibilities should this include in our strategy?
7. What would your club need, for it to be able to attract and develop more curlers?
8. What is the one thing that prevents you from curling more?

Completing the survey gives you the opportunity to be included in the subsequent development of the Royal Club's strategy. The deadline for completing the online questionnaire is December 5. Find the link to the survey here.

These are not easy questions, and will require members to give them a bit of thought. But I fervently hope that many do respond. Not to do so is the equivalent of saying 'I don't give a toss' about the future of the sport in Scotland. It's the equivalent of just giving your proxy to those currently running things. And don't even begin to think, 'Well, they were elected....." Many more Scottish curlers will look at this blog post TODAY than voted in the election for the directors' positions on the Board last summer. You have the franchise. You can make a difference. Apathy is the sport's biggest enemy. Take the time to fill out the survey.

I'll certainly be doing so.

The Royal Club has been asking for feedback on other things recently. Competitions Manager Colin Hamilton has asked all competitors in the Scottish Men's Championship how they think the prequalifying should be organised. And if you were involved in the recent Indoor Grand Match, then your views would be welcomed, see here.

If I'm talking of questionnaires and surveys, I have to mention the British Curling's Olympic and Paralympic Games survey, which was headed up, independently, by Simon Timson. I understand that this sought to find out just what went wrong with our Olympic programme for Vancouver. Timson is head of the English Cricket Board's development programme (see here), and was the person who put bob skeleton on the map ten years or so ago. Given his background, I believe that Timson was an excellent choice as the 'investigator'. Timson's report was submitted back in September. I do not know the extent of its circulation.

Apparently, all those involved in the Olympic programme at every level were asked for their feedback. Given the climate of secrecy that surrounds all things to do with British Curling, I do not hold out much hope that even a sanitized version of Timson's report will ever be published for us all to read. Likely, the best we can hope for is that those who will be running the next four year (three and a bit, now) cycle will learn from it. After all, learning from mistakes is what life is all about! I'm guessing here, but I suspect that the various changes to the performance curling programme at the Sportscotland Institute of Sport, which are currently being implemented, may well be one consequence of Timson's survey.

It's easy to ask questions. It's what we do with the answers which is the hard part!

A new future for Scottish and British curling

One of the incongruities about a personal blog like Skip Cottage Curling is that one moment I seem to be larking about with caption competitions and other trivialities, and the next I'm trying to get my head around serious issues such as the changing policies of the organisations that look after our representation in world championships and the Olympics.

This post is a serious one! Listen up if you will. Correct me if what you read here is wrong. Contribute to the debate if you are so minded. Change is in the air. For better, or for worse? I leave you to form your own opinions.

I may have some detail wrong, but one thing is clear, the previous curling programmes of the Royal Club, sportscotland's Institute of Sport, and British Curling, are now history. No longer can we think of the Institute looking after the elite teams, the Royal Club looking after the next level, the National Academy teams, and British Curling looking after the teams for the Olympics and Paralympics. The future seems to be putting past structures into a big pot and giving the whole lot a good stir. Exactly what will emerge is a little difficult to see.

Here's what we know at present. sportscotland Institute of Sport's Mike Whittingham, the high performance director there, seems to be taking the lead. I've already mentioned (here) the appointment of a 'Performance Director' for the high performance curling programme. That process is already advanced, with applications closed last months and interviews imminent if not already ongoing. Last week adverts for three more posts for 'Head Coaches' went up online (see here), for a men's head coach, a women's head coach, and a wheelchair curling head coach.

These are new posts, and current holders of coaching positions, such as Derek Brown, Cate Brewster, Nancy Murdoch and Tom Pendreigh for example, will all have to apply for the jobs if they are interested in any of them, and wish to stay with the future curling programme. And what will be the position of Rhona Martin, the Royal Club's Performance Development Coach, and Brad Askew, her assistant? I understand too, there there will be other 'technical coach' positions to be filled as this new coaching structure takes place.

These new appointments are being made apparently with the blessing and agreement of British Curling, something I find odd as the new board of that organisation is not yet in place, although we know that Mike Gillespie is the new Chairman (see here), that appointment just awaiting ratification from members at their next meeting. Appointment of directors should take place later this month, applications having now closed. One thing is certain. Royal Club Chairman Willie Nicoll has a seat on the new British Curling Board. And it seems likely that the new Royal Club CEO, Bruce Crawford, will also be the Chief Operating Officer of British Curling.

I asked Willie Nicoll when I heard about this, my gut feeling being that there might be conflicts of interest. This was before I realised that the past was past and a new future was in the pot. He responded, "Following a review of British Curling certain changes are under discussion one of which is that the CEO of the Royal Club will undertake the duties of the Chief Operating Officer of British Curling. When these discussions are concluded and ratified by the members a formal announcement will be made." He did add in a follow-up email that he had no doubt that this will be approved by the members.

It would seem then that there is to be a much closer working relationship in the future between the Royal Club and British Curling. That's probably a good thing, although others, such as the Welsh and English Curling Associations, might have something to say about it all. I note that John Brown says, "There needs to be a clear distinction I believe in the various roles of the RCCC and British Curling." And he further comments on the run-up to Sochi in his post here.

The new coaching structure implies a much closer relationship between the Royal Club and the sportscotland Institute of Sport than there has been in the past. It has always seemed to me unnecessarily complicated to separate the national coaching effort into 'Elite' and 'National Academy' squads. Bringing these together, involving too the British Curling Olympic/Paralympic effort, seems on paper to be a sensible idea - assuming it can be made to work, avoiding the mistakes and problems of the past. It will be the Performance Director's job to make it happen. What a crucial appointment that will be!

Funding for all the jobs and the high performance curling programme comes from sportscotland and from UKSport. Such a new structure, with everyone working together, must be a happier choice for these funding partners. It says in the job descriptions "For the next Olympiad cycle 2010-2014, sportscotland and UK Sport will jointly fund one High Performance Programme for Curling which will have two clear components - a Scottish High Performance Programme and an Olympic/Paralympic element. The representative body for the British element is British Curling whilst the Scottish High Performance Programme sits with the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. It is anticipated that up to 48 athletes will be supported through this process."

The job descriptions of the head coach jobs now being advertised notes that the first of many 'key responsibilities' is to be head coach for the Sochi 2014 Olympic/Paralympic curling teams.

Despite the British Curling Board not yet being in place, as I've noted already, I can only assume that all this new relationship between sportscotland Institute of Sport, the Royal Club and British Curling has all been worked out, and the recipe for the future has been discussed much more than anyone is letting on.

If you are like me, you will have many questions to ask. For example, what will the Royal Club's influence be on the performance curling programme? Little or none? Certainly that would seem to be the case. The post of 'National Coach' is now irrelevant. What about the Regional Academy programme to encourage those new to the competitive side of the sport? Will this continue? Assuming that the Royal Club will still organise Scottish Championships, with the winners going to the Worlds, what will happen if a team which is not supported wins that right? Or is all this going to change too?

My goodness, we live in interesting times!

British Curling chooses academic as new chairman

Those who follow the elite end of the sport of curling, and those interested in who will be heading up the programme that will take British curling teams to the next Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi, will be interested to learn that Mike Gillespie has been chosen as British Curling's new chairman. Mike is Head of the School of Science at the University of Derby, and is an Assistant Dean within the Faculty of Education, Health and Sciences. There he has responsibilty for International Development, Employer Engagement and Income Generation. He joined the University of Derby in March 2010.

I cannot think of anyone better to chair British Curling at this time. For one thing, he has served on the Board of Directors for the past four years, so provides continuity into the next Olympic cycle. He's an academic, and knowing how difficult university politics can be, I am persuaded that he can take curling, and sport, politics in his stride! I wish him every success.

Whether of course he will seek to address British Curling's major problem remains to be seen. What problem? I refer to the lack of transparency of the organisation, the absence of minutes, the unavailability of accounts, and the general veil of secrecy under which this most important of curling's organisations lurks.

The closing date for applications for the other director positions on the British Curling Board is September 24, see here. I am hearing though that there are changes in the offing in the way the Board is constituted. The Royal Caledonian Curling Club is to have a representative seat on the Board, apparently. And closer ties with sportscotland have been suggested too. I can see sense in both of these suggestions, if they are true, but we will probably all need to wait until things are made public, before commenting.

Mike's photo is from a University of Derby news release, here. You can find more about his academic work and other interests here.

Are you up for it?

The British Curling Board of Directors. Some would say these are the most important jobs in the sport of curling in this country. Are you interested? Could you do the job?

British Curling is the body recognised by the British Olympic Association/British Paralympic Association and UK Sport as responsible for the preparation, selection and performance of the British teams for those events which require the participation of a 'British' curling team i.e. the Olympics, World University Games and the Youth Olympics.

British Curling is seeking a new Chairman, a Financial Director and up to four Ordinary Directors. The details are here.

These Board level appointments will take British Curling to Sochi in 2014 and 'provide a sustainable legacy for 2018'.

The job description notes that the current Board was appointed on a competency-based system, and that Olympic and Paralympic medals will be the foremost measure of success in this next Olympiad.

With these criteria, as GB failed to gain any medals in the men's, women's or wheelchair curling events at Vancouver, British Curling's Olympic efforts over the past four years must be classed as a failure. It is harsh to say this, of course, as there were many positives on the journey. But Vancouver itself was a failure. Disappointingly so. I am sure lessons have been learned, and no doubt these will be passed on to any new Board.

The current Chairman is Chris Hildrey, Finance Director is Alan Chalmers, and two Ordinary Directors are listed, Hew Chalmers and Mike Gillespie. Chris has not decided yet if he will put his name forward again.

If you are interested in any of the positions, the closing date for the Chairman's job is September 13, and September 24 is the deadline for the other posts. You can find out all about British Curling on the company's website here.

Of course, even when a new Board is in place, what will happen in this new Olympic cycle is unclear. There is the small matter of the British Government's ongoing spending review! A report is expected in October, and it will only be after that date that UK Sport will know how much it will have to distribute to the various elite sports programmes it funds. We live in interesting times, certainly!

Karen's deselection

On January 20, British Curling issued a statement which indicated that Karen Addison (above) had been deselected from the Team GB Olympic curling squad. That statement is here.

A couple of days before (here), I had speculated that Karen's non-appearance at the Glynhill Ladies International was indicative that something serious had happened within the British Curling ranks. The facts of what had happened were a mystery to me. Had it been Karen's own decision to leave the squad, or had she been asked to leave? And what had brought things to this point? The official statement added little. Nor did Katie Still's interview with Team Coach Nancy Murdoch, see here.

Karen is keen to clarify her position, and says, "I am being continually asked what actually happened and feel that releasing a statement will hopefully put it to rest."

This is her statement today:

"As recent media reports and statements made by British Curling have left it largely unclear as to the circumstances regarding my exit from Team GB, I would like to clarify that this was a de-selection decision by British Curling, confirmed in a letter I received from Derek Brown, Performance Director, stating the following:

'British Curling Selection Panel met on Saturday 9th January 2010 to discuss your position in the GB Women’s Curling Team. It is with regret that the panel, Chaired by Mike Gillespie, has taken the decision to de-select you under the following criteria:-

Attitude
Team chemistry/cohesion

This de-selection will take effect immediately. We very much regret having to take this decision but it was felt unanimously by the panel that we had no other option'.

The Selection Panel was made up of Derek Brown, Nancy Murdoch and the non-voting Chairman.

I chose not to challenge the Selection Panel’s decision, through Sports Resolution (UK), to seek re-instatement to the team as I felt that relations between the two parties had deteriorated so rapidly and to the extent that they could not have been successfully repaired before the Olympic Games, even if my appeal was successful.

Reconvening of the Selection Panel was the result of a conversation with the Performance Director in early January where I raised what I believed to be very legitimate concerns regarding the quality of the programme delivered and my preparation as 5th player for the Olympic Games.

My relationship with the members of the team remains intact and I wish the girls every success in Vancouver.

Karen Addison"

Karen's pic is by Bob from the European Championships 2009 at Aberdeen

What's happened to Karen?

Karen Addison, above, the fifth player in the GB Olympic curling team headed for Vancouver next month, has not been seen with the other team members for the past two weekends. Her absence at the Glynhill Ladies International at Braehead at the weekend led to much speculation amongst the other teams and curling fans. I understand too that it was the talk of the steamie at Perth too, at the men's championship qualifying.

Was she ill? That didn't seem to be the simple explanation. I asked where she was, and I was told that nothing could be said there and then but a statement would be made. No statement has appeared.

There is speculation that Karen has left the Olympic Squad. Could that possibly be true? If so, why? Is it anything to do with British Curling's performance director Derek Brown, who is still embroiled in a legal battle stemming from what happened at the World Championships in Vernon, back in 2008, in his capacity then as the Scottish National Coach? It was Karen Addison who stepped into the head then and skipped the remnants of the Scottish team to two victories which helped secure the British place in the 2010 Olympics. Would it not be ironic if disagreements with Brown now are somehow involved?

The speculation is that Karen has been unhappy that she's not had the opportunity to play recently. Have there been conflicts with Team Coach, Nancy Murdoch? But I don't know. It does seem odd that the Olympic fifth player would not be match ready.

One thing is true. When something like this happens, the tendency of those in charge is to retreat within themselves and say nothing. Bad idea. Letting gossip go unchecked just makes it worse in the long term. And of course the situation is complicated by the fact that the teams are now the responsibility of the British Olympic Association.

But let's make no mistake, this is an incident of extreme importance. British Curling has had years to get it right - that we field the best prepared teams at the Olympics. Every opportunity has been taken to say what a good job has been done. The men's team has always been a team and of course chose their own alternate, Graeme Connal, although he had not originally been selected for the Olympic squad of six. Although not everything has gone right for them on the ice this busy season, all the signs are that the team is coming to form at the right time.

The women's team has been manufactured, and with no great expectations at first, has grown into an outfit of which we can all be proud. I watched Karen hard at work late into the night at Aberdeen, testing out stones and generally doing all the work expected as a fifth player, and indeed able to step on to the ice and play in any position should the need arise. I can only surmise that behind the scenes recently problems have arisen. That's sad.

Remember, this is all speculation. It could be that the delay in any announcement appearing is that efforts are being made to get Karen to change her mind. Who knows. If she does and the squad remains intact, that would be great of course. Am I wrong, do you think, in bringing all this to the fore now, when we don't know what has happened today or what will happpen tomorrow? There will undoubtedly be some who think I am. But I believe firmly that you should never hide the truth, however difficult the situation. There were lots of people asking the same question as me at the weekend, "Where's Karen?" And being fobbed off with no answer. Make no mistake, these are people who are 100% behind our Olympic efforts, as am I.

If Karen has gone, who will get the call as a replacement fifth player? The precedent is there, as with the men, for the women to chose their own alternate. But there is so little time left. Lynn Cameron was the sixth member of the squad when it was first announced. She was then discarded, and has moved on in her own curling career. Now as a rival of the Muirhead team in the Columba Cream Scottish Ladies Championship (as Claire Milne's third) she is not interested in any call to come back. She is already an Olympian, lead in Team GB in 2006. She's been there, done that. Current European Mixed champion of course. Joining the Team GB Squad now, I suspect, holds little attraction.

The talk seems to be that Annie Laird would be asked. That's her above, in the pink jacket, substituting for the Sarah Reid team at the weekend.

Annie is an experienced player. She played lead for the Jackie Lockhart team which won the World Championship in 2002. But the fact remains that if Annie, or indeed whoever goes to Vancouver as the fifth, and because of illness or injury is called on to play, it would mean that Great Britain would be represented by four players who have never, ever, been on the ice together as a foursome in competition. What an absolute nonsense that would be!

It really is a distraction for Eve, Jackie, Kelly and Lorna who, even this past weekend, showed that they have the talent and class to compete against the best in the world. Nothing like this should be interfering with their preparations.

The timing of it all could not be worse. On Wednesday, Louise Martin CBE, Chair of sportscotland and Sports Minister, Shona Robison, will team up in Stirling to extend Scotland's best wishes to all our winter sports athletes who have been selected to represent Team GB at the forthcoming Winter Olympic Games. A press release has been circulated.

In it, Chris Hildrey, the British Curling Chairman, says, "I'd like to congratulate the curlers on their selection for Team GB as we enter the final stages of preparation for medal success in Vancouver. The passion, commitment and professionalism they have displayed over recent months has been admirable and with their selection now confirmed, they will be able to focus efforts on achieving the ultimate goal in Vancouver, whilst hopefully enjoying the Olympic experience." Hasn't turned out that way, has it? I asked Chris by email today when the statement promised me yesterday would appear. He did not give me an answer.

Well, that's how I see it tonight, in the absence of any official statement.

Photos by Bob

GB teams face the media

Eve Muirhead, skip of the GB women's team, crashes to the ice and lies dazed amongst the stones. Is she conscious? Is she breathing? Has the ice been damaged?

What should I do? Yell for help? "Is there a doctor in the house?"

Better take a picture first!

Others had the same idea! No panic. British Curling had a media day yesterday at the Peak in Stirling, to give the press a chance to meet the GB Olympic and Paralympic curling squads.

It was organised by Mike Haggerty (British Curling's media officer) and Katriona Bush (sportscotland's corporate media adviser), and the media interest in the curling squads was bigger than anything I have ever witnessed before.

Above, the men's squad get questioned by journalists from many of the national papers.

I enjoyed, in particular, watching the professional photographers going about their job!

(No, this is not a caption competition. Or maybe it should be!)

It was good to see Pete Smith throwing stones again, if a little tentatively it seemed to me.

The wheelchair curlers went through their paces too.......

....and posed for formal and informal pics. L-R: Tom Killin, Angie Malone, Michael McCreadie, Aileen Neilson and Jim Sellar.

Of course, it was a very serious day! As coaches David Hay and Tom Pendreigh illustrate!

Anyway, here are the men. Back L-R Ewan MacDonald, Euan Byers, Graeme Connal. Front: David Hay, David Murdoch and Peter Smith.

And the women. Back L-R: Jackie Lockhart, Eve Muirhead, Karen Addison. Front: Nancy Murdoch, Lorna Vevers and Kelly Wood.

As I said, it was all very serious! Great fun, really. I thought the players showed remarkable patience and skill in dealing with all the demands made through all the photocalls and interviews. A real credit to the sport.

I gather there are another couple of these sessions prior to the Games, and then the real work begins!

Photos © Skip Cottage

Wheels on a Wednesday

There was a lot of wheelchair curling news awaiting me in my email inbox when I got home this evening. Hugh Stewart's photo (above) shows the GB Paralympic Squad training last summer at Inverness - all six of them. L-R: Jim Sellar, Rosemary Lenton, Michael McCreadie, Aileen Neilson, Tom Killin and Angie Malone. Tom Pendreigh is the squad coach.

The news today, here, is that this squad has now been reduced to five. Rosemary Lenton (left) is the one who misses out. I saw her recently training at The Peak in Stirling (see here) and I'm sure she will be disappointed. So, while my best wishes go to the others as they embark on several hard months before the Paralympics, I have a thought today for Rosemary. I'm sure she has a big future in the sport still ahead of her.

In contrast to the two GB teams named for the Olympics, the Paralympic lineup is not certain. It will be interesting to see who will emerge as the team's skip.

Now, back in August, I mentioned Jim Taylor's efforts to raise funds for the Marie Curie Big Build Hospice Appeal, see here. That involved challenging the World Champions to a game at Stirling. The event was organised by Give Them a Sporting Chance, which is a registered charity giving carers and those with disabilities, of all ages, the opportunity to make their sporting or recreational dreams come true.

All credit to David Murdoch and his team for getting involved. Jim says, “Give Them A Sporting Chance provided seamless organisational skills and what can I say about GB Men’s Olympic coach David Hay and Team Murdoch taking on this challenge in the year leading up to Olympics? Fantastic! The whole event emphasised camaraderie, friendship and good sportsmanship. It was a surreal experience and passed by too fast.”

There's a lot of generous people out there! Jim has raised £1720 so far, and if you feel you can contribute, it's not too late, go here.

Here is the official record of the day. Front: L-R: Ian Donaldson, Jim Taylor, Angie Malone, Jim Elliott, Bill Masterton. Back: David Hird, Euan Byers, Peter Smith, Graeme Connal, David Murdoch, Andrew Bain.

A postscript. Active Stirling’s Curling Development Officer, Logan Gray, said, "Immediately after this event, there was an Active Stirling Come and Try opportunity for wheelchair curlers at The Peak. Four new wheelchair curlers turned up and thoroughly enjoyed learning the basics of curling and have come back for follow up coaching sessions. Wheelchair curling is a growing network with clubs being started all over Scotland and plans are now in place for Stirling to become a new centre for wheelchair curlers to take to the ice."

Olympic season

This being a Winter Olympics season, there is bound to be increasing media interest in the curling teams which will represent GB at Vancouver. Here's a note of an early story.

BBC Radio 5 Live will air an interview with David Murdoch tomorrow (Monday, September 7) at 10 pm. The interview with the skip of the Olympic men's squad, who is the reigning world champion, is part of a Winter Olympics Special.

The half hour programme will include an interview with Andy Hunt, Chief Executive of the British Olympic Association, about the general preparations leading up to the Olympics in a number of sports. The story is on British Curling's website here.

The GB Olympics men's team open their campaign against Sweden on February 16 - the full draw can be downloaded from the WCF website here.

My photo above is of David with Scottish, European and World Championship trophies, when he addressed a Lockerbie and District Rotary Club meeting earlier this summer.