Long post warning - 11 Dec 2008

Well why did I yesterday claim to have had an easy day!!!! Serves me right....

Here goes, breath in and don't hold your breath cos you will not be able to hold it in and finish reading today's post.

The day starts with Dave Obee calling me up asking for Darren's address as he wants to send us Xmas cards and we talk about how things are going with the GDA. He keeps thanking me for taking care of his partner Diane and him during his recent stay for the 50th anniversary Gala dinner and I assure him it was an absolute pleasure.

I finally sit down to prepare and email the tender award letter to the manager of college cosmos which has been pending for quite some time (needs to be paid before 1st quarter of the season) and seeing I now have received an email from him I know he will receive this important email so that he can deal with it promptly. This has taken me over 1 and a half hours as my stupid computer has crashed on me several times today.

In preparation of this email we also need to close the books on membership fees that have been put in by the players and its also something that the college cosmos will cover for us. So I send a txt to Dylan & Nicholas (both captains of the teams playing from the College), for them to confirm the amount due. Nicholas does get back to me but Dylan doesn't so I have included this in the email and if there are any discrepancies I have asked Pepe to please call Dylan.

As its not quite the end of my lunchtime I take the opportunity to use these few minutes to visit the bank and cash the cheque that Dyson gave me yesterday. 10% as per the norm goes to the GDA and I have made a note in our constitutional bye-laws for inclusion before our next AGM. On my return I go to our PO Box and find the Darts World magazine and a few letters which as you will read further down require immediate attention.

There are tons of these notes (bye-laws) which I am cataloging for inclusion as they have been approved by the committee and which we can do if not covered by our current constitution and they stand from approval up to the next AGM when they can be repealed by the members if they so wish to do so. Seeing they are not officially in the main documents it is paramount I am keeping these notes in order to protect both the committee and members alike from eventualities that more often than not are coming up. Another example is the use of official shirts which certain members did not take to the Winmau and as part of the Gibraltar selection they should be honoured and obliged to wear GDA (Gibraltar) shirts. This has also been included.

I called Dylan up as it appears that Beacon Press want to send the credit collectors (Group 5) to Darren for the non payment of a bill which has accumulated over the months from different orders we have been making. I know Dylan is waiting for the moneys of the membership fees but there is nothing I could have done earlier as I am extremely busy and there are sufficient funds in the GDA bank account anyways. I know he is responsible for the collection of moneys and I appreciate that but its complicated as you have to consider that I need to address which are youth, ladies & men as they are charged differently, count the monies, those teams who have overpaid (so have credit) and lastly I need to enter the registration details on our database.

Anyways its just complicated and I required that money for GDA stuff too which from my accounts is a lot of money the GDA owes me by now (nothing new I might add, guess who put the moneys for the Gibraltar Open because our sponsor unfortunately did not give us the cash before the event, whose fault was that I don't know but something needed to be done so I stepped up and put the cash myself). Anyways, I have now fully squared up the membership monies (barring the exception of a few players) and what is owed to me too.

After speaking to Dylan I send Darren an email and advise him that if Dylan can't come to see me lunchtime tomorrow (its the only free time I have) for him not to worry as I will pay a personal cheque myself until we have the time to go to the bank.

The solution next year is simple, I will have no initial involvement with the membership forms or moneys. All I will accept are the membership & team forms which have been duly paid to the treasurer.

In the gist of owing monies I remind Dyson via text message that he has to hand in the completed membership forms otherwise the St. Joseph's team will be suspended as it is not acceptable and too much time has been given anyways.

I am still unable to view the PDC article placed in the Spanish forum darderos.com for which I want to advise the Spanish residents about the qualifiers. I have already contacted them before but nothing has been done about it. Worst case I create another post and place it in the forum and if that gets blocked I know were I stand and its because they do not want people to read the post (this is a long story and sensitive so I can't place specifics here).

The president of the Catalan darts federation also contacts me concerning the PDC and that he has heard rumours that entries have been closed. I tell him that they are not and its just rumours that someone is spreading. I do however highlight that people are running their own qualifiers in Spain and they should be careful with that as the PDC have agreed that all details concerning the registration of players will come through Gibraltar (Stan James Rep).

Tich calls me concerning the 32 gram darts I was finally able to buy when I was over at the Winmau for Emilio Robles. I tell him that I will do my best to take them to his workplace tomorrow (do not know how I will make the time) but I'll try. We start chatting about other things but by the length of this post you can see I do not really feel like burdening the vice president with my workload. So we leave it at that.

Today also it suddenly made sense why I have received letters from companies who are detailing stuff about sponsorship, the problem is I have not contacted them but as Darren highlighted it must be sponsors that either Dylan or Dyson have been approaching with the letters of approval from the GDA. This just means more work as a letter must be responded to giving due thanks for their time at least in considering the sponsorships.

I also spend 15 minutes on a call from the UK, sensitive stuff and if you want to know join the committee jejeje.

Darren comes to see me to pick up Jane the Tom Tom we used at the Winmau and we discuss pending issues, all in all I wont bother you with any further details but we spend a good 20 minutes discussing and I forward an email of our affiliation to the WDF which is required for the incomplete Form A which was submitted to Government at the start of the season.

Here you go Dyson, didn't you say I was behind on my posts I did tell you it would be up today didn't I.


So, who held their breath? You must be purple by now and don't tell me I didn't warn you as I did at the beginning of the post jejejeje see you all tomorrow.