Skills Award Challenge

It was great to be back on the road again yesterday, albeit a bit tentatively. Dumfries Ice Bowl was not too far to travel though. What better boost to my recovery than to see lots of young curlers enjoying themselves playing our sport. The occasion was the second Skills Award Challenge.

I hope you are all aware of the Royal Club's Skills Awards programme. If not see here. Simply put, these are six progressive awards, each of which has a practical and a theoretical element designed to improve individual skills. Last year Judith McFarlane, the Royal Club's Development Manager for Clubs and Juniors, started up a competition for those juniors who had gained the first of these skill awards. Giving a bronze award a score of four, and the blue, white and red awards points of three, two and one, teams would be made up of four players to a maximum of ten points.

The second Skills Award Challenge competition was played out at the Ice Bowl yesterday (Saturday), with teams from Braehead, Lockerbie, Borders, East Kilbride, Waterfront, Lanarkshire (three of them) joining two from the local Dumfries Club. The young curlers played a series of three-end games in a Schenkel format, the top two after four rounds contesting a final.

Here are a few photos from the day. Who knows if there are stars of the future among them. That doesn't really matter. Having fun is what it should be about, and that aim was certainly accomplished at Dumfries yesterday.

Above: Ryan McCormack from Lockerbie.

Borders Neil Sutherland.

East Kilbride skip Emma Hair follows her front end James Hair and Kyle Turner. Hannah Lindsay is in the head.

Lockerbie's Daniel Robson and Dumfries's Heather Laurie.

Braehead skip Angus Shearer with third Catriona Fergus."OK Number 3. What's the plan?"

Catriona has an 'Oh Dear' moment!

Lockerbie's Daniel Robson.

Ellie Hamilton who was playing for Dumfries 1.

Dumfries 1 in action. Ellie, Fraser Kingan, and Natasha Kerr are on Shaun Milligan's stone.

Here's Fraser.

Connor Ballantyne, Hamilton.

My favourite pic from yesterday. Gillian Allan and Emma Hair share a joke as they skip their Hamilton and East Kilbride teams respectively.

Braehead reached the final. L-R: Angus Shearer (skip), Gavin Cruikshanks (lead), Catriona Fergus (third) and Kathryn Mackin (second).

The other finalists, Hamilton 3. L-R: Kathryn Johnson (second), Luke Carson (skip), Alastair Torrance (lead) and Ian Waddell (third). (Those in my age group might note evidence that curling is a genetic condition passed from generation to generation!)

Anyway, these two teams had met in the last Schenkel round. Then Braehead had won. But the final had a different script!

Alistair and Ian on Kathryn's stone in the final.

Luke Carson. The Lanarkshire team scored a big first end, and were on their way to the win.

Gavin and Kathryn are ready on Angus's stone.

While the final was going on, the other teams were taking part in a series of timed, fun challenges.

It's not something you see everyday at the Ice Bowl!

And so to the prizegiving ...

Dumfries ACDO Graham Sloan presents a prize for 'Shot of the Day' to Fraser Kingan. Apparently an angled raise double takeout!

Judith with Kathryn, Luke, Alistair and Ian, winners of the Skills Award Challenge.

Fraser Kingan, Natasha Kerr, Shaun Milligan and Ellie Hamilton won the fun challenge event.

And while the young curlers were competing, Judith held a workshop for Skills Assessors. Busy day for her. Well done!

Photos © Skip Cottage. Please let me know if I have any names wrong.

Hogmanay Curling

You may have read over the summer that Glasgow has scrapped plans for its Hogmanay party this year. Here's one article with an opinion on this.

However, the summer announcement did mention - intriguingly - that there would be curling in the city's George Square this year, in the family party that will finish at 10pm. The 'come and try' last year was a great success, see here, and Glasgow City Council obviously liked what happened then.

The Royal Club's Development Manager Judith McFarlane has confirmed that she is keen to be involved again. She says, "After the success of curling at Glasgow’s Hogmanay Celebrations last year, Glasgow Life and Royal Club are keen to continue to offer curling at George Square. Discussions have commenced with regard to the possibility of a Try Curling session during the festive period. Curling is likely to feature again at Glasgow’s Hogmanay Party which will be taking on a different approach and will be held during the day with a focus on families. Curling at George Square surrounded by Christmas lights with music playing and lots of smiles from the people around is an amazing experience. It provides a great opportunity to showcase and promote curling and I, for one, hope this becomes an annual occurrence!"

Let's hope Judith's discussions bear fruit.

There's a fabulous video here which shows what can be done. Or click on the image below. Did you know that curling featured in Red Square in Moscow last year? See if you recognise any of the competitors. (Bear with it, the curling comes in after about four minutes of the video.)

Curling... Moscow... Red Square. Great fun. Has to be seen to be believed. Enjoy!

Last word from Aberdeen

The success of the two Women's Tour events at Forfar and Aberdeen has been the result of the work of Judith McFarlane (above) and Kay Adams (below). The demise of the Mini Tour left a void for women's curling which these two had the courage and initiative to try to fill. Well done to them both. The Tour was not an official Royal Club event, although it received financial support from Ladies Branch. The cash prize for the overall winning team was £1000. There were individual prizes for the winners and runners-up of both events sponsored by Black Noir decorative glass.

Jeanette and Colin Galbraith travelled to Aberdeen from Durham to support the event and present the trophy (originally given for the Mini Tour, and now for the new Women's Tour) which bears the name of their son, also Colin, who was a promising young curler, no longer with us, but remembered by many. Jeanette and Colin are great company and it was good to meet up with them again!

I'm all for new things, and I think the Women's Tour accomplished much, bringing together junior and 'more senior' teams! I am sure both ends of the age spectrum, who don't often see each other on the ice, benefited from the experience. Helen King's team have said as much on their own blog (here), "The Ladies Tour has been a great competition and we have really enjoyed playing in it over the two weekends. A huge thanks has to go to Judith and all of the organisers for putting together such a fantastic event and we hope that it will continue next season."

I too hope that the Tour continues... and expands. There's lots of room for more entries next year, and even for teams from abroad, of any age!

And the results showed what can be accomplished, as well as highlighting - if I can be so bold - the inconsistency of play that is the particular problem in women's curling, in any age group. In theory, there's no way that a 'gaither-up' (skipped admittedly by the wiley Kay Gibb on her home ice) should have come away from Aberdeen second in their section with four wins, a peel and a loss. But successful the Aberdeen team was, as two National Academy teams in particular found out. Kay's loss came at the hands of the Tour winners. She is a past-president of Ladies Branch and now a Royal Club Board director. Good to see her in there fighting with 'the youngsters' on the ice!

Photos © Skip Cottage. See others in previous posts.

Curling in Slovenia (updated)

More than three hundred people experienced Slovenia's first ever 'Come and Try' curling session in Ljubljana last Saturday.

The World Curling Federation's Development Officer Eeva Rothlisberger was behind the initiative.

Recognise anyone in the photo above? Yes, that's Judith McFarlane, the Royal Club's Development Manager, in full instruction mode.

Judith says, "I was just overwhelmed by the level of enthusiasm, preparation and hospitality shown by everyone involved.

Volunteers were painting circles in preparation for ice-man Mike Reid arriving. Mike did a great job in producing high quality ice and was working with a Slovenian named Denis to pass on knowledge which he can hopefully use to their benefit. Fifteen billboards all across the city were advertising the event as well as promotion on radio. The organising group had obtained a lot of sponsors who all had their banners on display at the rink and the opportunity to set up marketing stalls.

A large screen was brought in to show curling footage and relay the Try Curling sessions for those sitting in the stands watching. Three curling clubs set up stalls, all with their own club logos, information and club jumpers/jackets already! They were recruiting for new members; quite amazing considering the members themselves had all only been on-ice once before!

During the Try Curling event, there was a ‘VIP’ tournament with actors, musicians and dancers taking part on the centre two sheets. On the outside sheets, there were opportunities for members of the public to try curling and it was busy all day!! Between 300 and 400 people came along and at 7pm (2 hours after it was due to end), the organisers had to kindly tell people that it was time to leave the ice in order to get everything cleared up. Throughout the day, there was a BBQ and drinks tent outside, comedian, belly-dancer and live band.

It was a fantastic event to be involved in and I am certain curling in Slovenia will go from strength to strength having seen the Try Curling day."

Thanks Judith, and 'well done'! More photos:

I haven't had the chance to ask Judith if belly-dancers are going to be a feature of the next RCCC Come and Try days!

Billboard publicity for Try Curling.

And great to see colour on the ice!

That's Eeva on the left, beside Judith. And there are some other well kent VIP faces amongst the organisers.

Photos courtesy of the Slovenian Curling Association.

New women's events added to calendar

Two new events have been added to the women's curling calendar, making up for the demise of the Mini Tour. The dates are Forfar, October 15-17, and Aberdeen, November 19-21.

The initiative has come from Judith McFarlane, the Royal Club's Development Manager, who recognised the need for women's teams to have competitions to play in prior to the Scottish Championship. It's all very well for those teams in the Elite Squad who get the opportunity to compete in the likes of the Curling Champions Tour. But what is there for the others? The answer is 'very little', particularly as there will be no Scottish prequalifying competition this season. So the initiative is a good one. More details are on the Royal Club website (here), where it says that 'Entries are being encouraged from juniors, women’s and senior women’s teams'. The Elite Squad teams are not encouraged to enter!

Judith explains that she and Kay Adams have contacted teams from the last several years of Scottish women's and seniors' competitions to find out if there was demand for two more events. She says, "We've been delighted to have responses directly from thirteen teams; eleven Scottish, one English and one Welsh with interest in competing in one or both weekends."

Perhaps disappointingly, no foreign interest has been shown so far. An invitation has been on the ECF website (here) for a while. It's not too late for countries with women's teams, preparing perhaps to play in the B Divisions of the European Championship, to enter for one or other weekend.

Entries should be sent directly to the RCCC, where Colin Hamilton is in charge of organising the ice and the draw.

Good to see the Forfar rink making further efforts to be on the competitive map next season. The rink has resurrected the 'Forfar Open', see here. New owner Mike Ferguson is in his second season, and is pleased that his venue is to host the first event of the women's tour. He says, "Everyone at Forfar Indoor Sports is delighted to be granted the opportunity to hold the Scottish Women's Tour and we are looking forward to welcoming the competitors to the rink. Work has already started on several alterations which will enhance the overall curling experience at Forfar. This is another small step on the way to making Forfar a recognised, well supported curling venue for local, national and international competitions."

Curl Aberdeen is well recognised as a top competitive venue, and Tom Brewster and his staff will cope with the second of the weekends in their stride.

Judith says, "We'd like to make it a really sociable event. We're confident of getting at least ten teams for each weekend and creating a platform to grow from in future years."

The photo of Judith McFarlane is from the Glynhill Ladies International earlier this year and is © Skip Cottage.