Premier team "Cannons" have chosen to play out of the Moonee Ponds Club rather than relocate to Flem Ken Bowlo as had been planned.

No changes to the draw are required, just the venue change.

At the MMPL AGM Ian Hart stepped down as President due to his upcoming travels which meant that he couldn’t fully committed to the MMPL.

The new committee (from memory):

· Drew Sheehan - President.

· Chris McBride - Vice President.

· Kevin Jessup – Treasurer.

· Dave Giles- Statistician.

· Chip Willman, Anthony Johnson, Kjell Johansson – General Committee.

At the preseson meeting the following was resolved:

· International rules will be played in all divisions for the entire season.

· The 60 second shot clock with 30 second warning will be used (not the 45 second specified in the rules), no extensions permitted.

· Captains call will apply for non finals rounds in the lower divisions.

· Covid rule still applies, to be used no more than once a season:

· Create a fictitious “Covid team name” player in livescoring or score sheet.

· Any team a player down due to covid will delay the affected frame until the end of the round.

· The opposition will nominate a player to play again.

· We recommend and if the player requests, in addition to the referee a time keeper (from the opposition) referee will officiate the frame.

More training sessions are to be held at Flem Ken Bowlo next and possibly the following Tuesdays, 7pm.

I’ll be hosting a training session at Masters St Kilda next Tuesday 7pm.

We are still in the process of gathering teams for the season, please send me your team sheets ASAP and we plan to have the season under way by 6th June.

Congratulations to the Master Strokers, Hot Pockets and Wild Cats in their Grand Final wins last Tuesday.

In anticipation of the introduction of the “International Rules” (IR) set for the winter season a training session will be held at Flem Ken Bowlo, 7pm on Tuesday 9th May.

Players who are familiar with the ruleset will be available for advice and coach on the differences between “World Rules”.

Versions of IR can be downloaded as PDFs from:

https://irorefs.com/rules-guidance/

The latest version is “2b Jan 2023”.

A free test can be taken at:

https://8ballreferee.com.au/all-courses/

It will be necessary to enrol (create an account), then answer 100 questions in 100 minutes, a certificate will be emailed to you upon a pass (90 correct answers), 5 attempts are permitted.

All MMPL members who pass will receive a $5 discount on their $70 winter fees.

Premier and Division 1 will switch to IR for the entire season, Division 2 will start with World Rules then make the IR switch mid-season.

Please also encourage your team members to attend the MMPL Annual General Meeting, 7pm Tuesday 16th May, followed by the winter pre-season captains meeting.

The MMPL Annual General Meeting is to be held 7pm, 16th May 2023 at the Flemington Kensington Bowling Club, immediately followed by the captains & delegates meeting to register teams entering the winter comp.

The incumbent committee members have all advised of their intention to offer themselves for re-election.

If you have a nomination of a member for any position please submit a completed nomination form by email as soon as possible.

Pizzas and drinks will be provided and the three pool tables will be available for the remainder of the evening to all that attend.

I encourage team captains to complete and return a team and player rego sheets prior to this meeting so that we can get an idea of the team numbers and a head start on the draw.

Fees will be $70/player for the season.

We are looking forward to a good turn out (please extend this invitation to all MMPL members) and to have the season up and running by Tuesday 30th May, more information on this season to follow.

Premier Finals will consist of the top 4 teams.

MPC Cannons

Master Strokers

Master Breakers

Wild Cards

Division 1 Finals will be split into two groups:

Finals "A":

Just the Tip

Hot Pockets

Tower Crew

Peacocks

Finals "B":

The Sorrys

Wild Cats

Hotham Silver

FK Mustangs

To qualify to play in finals a player must have played at least 1 frame in 4 of the 8 regular season rounds.

We no longer count bye rounds in the qualifying count.

The finals rounds for this season have now been configured in Poolstat.

Next week will be the last round of the regular season, then finals will commence on the 18th April.

Anzac day is the 25th April which coincides with the Preliminary Finals round, this will affect 2 matches, to avoid delaying the finals we ask that any teams who object to playing on that day reschedule their match.

The Grand Finals are scheduled for 2nd May at Flem Ken Bowlo.

We will then start planning for the winter season and aim to have a Thursday night International Rules comp run in parallel with the Tuesday night World Rules comp.

We are also looking into the possibility of some International Rules training sessions.

So please start considering your winter season team entries.

As of round 3 The Sorrys will be playing out of Queen Vic Hostel.

To determine the teams and venues that will take part in the Summer 2023 a meeting will take place at the Flem Ken bowlo on the 24th January at 7pm.

I believe that as usual snacks and refreshments will be available.

Match relocated to Flem Ken.

This preliminary final match has been relocated to Flem Ken Bowlo.

Click/press "Team Login" then enter the PIN.

The PIN will be accepted after 3pm the day of the match.

https://ls.poolstat.net.au/

The C&D sheet will not include these PINs but they have been emailed to the contacts listed in the sheet.

The Poolstat live scoring is available and some teams prefer to use it over the paper score sheets.

However it can only be used by the home team and if they don't use it then both teams have to resort to the paper sheets.

I'd like to make the team PINs available to all MMPL teams (published them in the Captain & Delegates list) so that the away team can use the home team's PIN if the home team don't use the system.

I can't envisage another team sabotaging another's score sheet and if there are any irregularities a paper scoresheet will always override the live scoring.

If there are no objections (email: dave.p.giles@gmail.com) I'll update the C&D sheet, email it and upload to FB.

Division 2 is reduced to 6 teams and so has a 15 round draw.

Premier fixtures has no changes but the Div1 FK Mustangs 2 v Wildcats round 10 match has been changed, Wildcats are now home, to avoid 4 Flem Ken home matches.

The Snook Dogs won't be competing this season.

This could cause a redraw of the Div 2 fixtures even if a replacement team is found and could affect the Prem and Div 1 fixtures.

The draw for this season is now available in Poolstat.

Season starts 12th July.

Scheduled for:

7pm, Tuesday, 21 June

at:

Flem Ken Bowlo, 407-411 Racecourse Rd, Flemington VIC 3031

This is the list of confirmed teams:

Wild Cards

Master Strokers

MPC Cannons

Bangers

Master Breakers

Snipers

Ducks

The Kramers

FK Mustangs

Just the Tip

Peacocks 2

Stray Cats

The Long Chalk to Freedom

Peacocks 1

Eddie Connell All Stars

Tower Crew

Loose Cannons

Snook Dogs

Hotham Silver

Miscues

If you are not on the list please let me know ASAP.

Food and drinks will be provided.

Due to the double booking at the Tower Hotel, the Tower Crew v Peacocks2 match has been relocated to Masters.

A player must have played in at least 50% of the rounds to qualify for finals, 5 for Prem & 6 for Div 1.

A bye round will count as long as the player played prior to the bye.

This will run in parallel with the Div 1 "A" grade finals.

The finals schedules are up on Poolstat.

Teams higher in the ladder will have home ground advantage and both Grand Finals are scheduled to be played at Flem Ken Bowlo on 7th June.

The Division 1 finals will be played on consecutive Tuesdays but Premier will have a week off before the Semi Final and another week off prior to the Grand Final.

This match has been deferred to the 19th April (Easter break for most of us) due to many of the MPC Cannon players taking part in the BlackBall event in Ipswich QLD.

The Ducks have changed venues and will now play out of Pulo for the remainder of the season.

This affects their matches with the Bangers and Snipers, Poolstat has been updated with the venue change.

The Easter Tuesday round (19/4/2022) will be postponed a week but tomorrows round (15/3/2022) will go ahead as normal.

The "Manningham Mayhem" are now known as "Just the Tip".

Season starts Tuesday 1st March.

Premier and Division 1 fixtures for summer 2022 available.

The 2020 MMPL AGM is to be held 7pm, 22nd February 2022 at the Flemington Kensington Bowling Club. All MMPL player/members are encouraged to attend.

Nominations for the 2022 MMPL Executive are now open and must be received by the commencement of the AGM.

A Nomination form can be downloaded from the MMPL Facebook group.

Any General Business agenda items for the AGM can be forwarded to the MMPL President Ian Hart at ianhart1@live.com.au.

A preseason Captains and Delegates Meeting will immediately follow the AGM.

This meeting will determine the format for the upcoming MMPL Summer Season that is anticipated to commence the week following the preseason meeting on Tuesday 1 March 2022.

All team captains are encouraged to complete and return the attached team registration sheet as soon as possible so that teams can be allocated to divisions and a fixture draw completed.

Fees will be $20/player for the season. Any fees already paid for the previous abandoned season will be credited.

Pizzas and drinks will be provided and the three pool tables available for the remainder of the evening to all that attend.

Attending the Preseason Captains and Delegates Meeting is important so that all teams/players are aware of the season format and have a clear understanding of any new rules/bylaws.

The MMPL have developed a new MMPL Covid Safe Policy document and all members are encouraged to familiarise themselves with this document and abide by its provisions.

A copy of the MMPL Covid Safe Policy can be found on the MMPL Facebook MMPL group and the Executive will seek to have this policy endorsed by the Preseason Captains and Delegates Meeting.

Due to the Covid situation the MMPL Executive propose the following to create more flexibility to accommodate players being absent due to experiencing covid symptoms:

We encourage all teams to have at least 6 players and to consider prearranging possible casual players that can cover any absences.

We propose that in the case that a team can only field 4 players due to a covid related player absence that the opposing team captain can nominate a player from the opposing team to play as a substitute for the absent player in each round.

This substitution process will be subject to the following conditions:

1) The affected frame will be delayed until the end of each round (fifth game).

2) The opposition captain will nominate a player from the covid stricken team to play the final frame of the round.

3) A different player can be nominated each round and can be nominated at any stage of the round prior to the final frame.

4) The nominated substitute player will not receive any stats and may not appear on the PoolStat score sheet.

5) If both teams are missing players then the frames are forfeited/abandoned as per normal.

We are looking forward to a good turn out and to have the season up and running by Tuesday 1st March.

The committee has decided that it’s not practicable to resume the current winter season at this late stage, so with just 3 rounds completed have no option but to declare it abandoned.

We intend to hold the AGM combined with the pre-season meeting in December (date pending) to establish a short summer season, that will then be followed by the longer winter season.

Hopefully by then the COVID-19 restrictions will be minimal and all venues fully open, allowing for an uninterrupted season.

Players will be advised of a new Covid-safe policy applicable to next season.

Any fees paid will be reimbursed or used as credit for the upcoming season.

The current MMPL season remains suspended and when State Government regulations allow we can either unsuspend and continue with the current fixtures or abandon the exiting season (having played just 3 rounds) then start afresh.

If we continue, and say re-commence in December 2021, it would mean playing though the summer and the season would wind up in May/April 2022. The current calendar has no significant Tuesday events that would cause a round to be rescheduled so the season should flow well, assuming no further covid-19 related interruptions.

Some players have a history of not playing competitive pool through the summer season so if we do continue with the existing season in December some teams may have to change personnel to account for this or in worse-case scenario withdraw from the competition.

The MMPL Executive are continuously monitoring the situation and when Melbourne looks like opening up we will consult with membership on the best way to proceed.

In the mean-time the MMPL Executive encourages all members to stay covid-19 safe and would encourage all members to get vaccinated to optimise the safety of players once the season recommences.

MMPL Executive

As there has been no relaxation of the COVID regulations the season cannot recommence next Tuesday.

The season can continue once all teams have a venue that allows the use of their pool tables.

As a result of today's Vic Government COVID announcement, we’re looking at restarting the season on the 17th August, possibly the 10th, pending future Government venue restriction announcements.

Round 4 now scheduled on 3rd August for all divisions.

The fixtures have been updated; round 4 and beyond pushed out by one week.

Good news, we can now give the go ahead for the winter season, with some provisos.

Each captain must establish their venue’s current covid restriction policies and convey them to ALL players in the match.

These policies will include:

• QR code/signing in process,

• mask wearing,

• mask wearing during play,

• social distancing,

• ordering from the bar.

Any player who cannot meet the restrictions MUST NOT take part in the match.

Good luck to all teams and let’s hope we have a full and enjoyable season.

It's been decided to hold the start of the season back another week and aim for the 29th June, so that we can fully establish the status and policies of all venues.

Poolstat round dates have been updated to reflect the new start date.

The dates have been pushed out to start on the 22nd.

Looking at 15th June as a possibility.