OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Went to the club again last night. Instead of playing the first match, had an extended semi-drill session with S?

Next was a relaxed hit with L? who is coming back from heart issues and a stent.

Then there was a couple of doubles involving myself, MD, AF & N?

After that was a singles for a discouraging 0-3 with MD.

Last of all was a 1-2 to AF. I won the first with a bit of attacking, but stopped doing that around 3/4 of the way through the 2nd game and paid for it.

My story is that I am still affected by the dental work done earlier in the week. That is the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth, although it is gone now.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Skipped Saturday afternoon at the community centre to go to the umpires meeting (AGM then general meeting) then hung around for the state AGM (AGM the council meeting). Among other things the ITTF suspension of activities for March & April was discussed, as was the recent TTA COVID 19 communication, but nothing really decided.

Went to the Vets comp on Sunday. We were gathered together before any match play and anyone feeling symptoms asked to go home, while ground rules were spelt out: wash hands in alcohol based hand-wash before & after every match, no hand contact. I managed to win all 6 singles for the day, and I think either 2 or 3 out of the 4 doubles.

One of the singles wins was against MC who I had lost to in November last year. I very nearly lost this one too. I quickly got to 2-0 up then proceeded to lose the next 2. At the beginning of the 5th I said to myself that there would be no easy points, and got away to a handy lead quite quickly. From there I kept on playing my game for the win 3-2.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Skipped Monday night, but went last night to the club. Numbers were slightly down, and hand sanitiser and no handshakes the order of the day.

First up was a singles with MD for a usual 1-2. Next was R? for an easy 3-0. Next was A? for another easy 3-0. Then a doubles me & PU v MD & N?. We got up 2-1 then decided to play best of 5 and I think lost 2-3. Then home for a relatively early night.

Still tossing up Saturday afternoon at the community centre. May invest in hand sanitiser as a pharmacy near where I work has some. Apparently there were only 4 last Saturday. Just reviewed COVID-19 Community Sport Guidelines issued to National Sporting Organisations. I will get the sanitiser.

Local committee meeting next Thursday. Main item on the agenda, drum roll please, corona virus. Around 3 local clubs have already closed down.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Ran the Saturday afternoon session at the community centre. One guy turned up. We had a hit for a while then sat around talking, keeping our social distance.

I was hoping to have a hit tonight, but have since had texts saying that TTA & TTNSW want all TT venues shut down, and that the local council was cancelling use of the community centre with any rent paid being credited for after the centre reopens, whenever that is. The club is complying with the TTA & TTNSW directive.

The local committee was going to meet this Thursday to determine what to do about the local comp & the community centre. Those points are now moot.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

No actual table tennis to report, funnily enough.

The committee meeting never occurred as the licensed club it was going to be held in was closed down as a result of COVID-19.

We were requested by the local council to return all of our keys to the community centre last week, so my wife handed them in as requested yesterday.

I deposited the monthly takings, only about 25% of the rent. However one week of rent will be returned as credit for when things get going again so we took around 33% of rent.

I heard recently that the legal proceedings over the Oz Open a couple of years ago had concluded in a settlement in the November 2019 time frame. I had recently perused the TTA audited financial statements and could find no sign of it, and had not seen it in what passes for the minutes from the board for November or December last year. The CEO was good enough to reply to an email I sent asking for more details. Apparently the settlement was, as seems usual in these things, confidential, it was included in the financial statements that had been signed off by the auditors. Apparently it was either not discussed at board level or not deemed worthy of inclusion in "Board Outcomes". <maybe I should have told this in my medieval read between the lines line of reportage>.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

No table tennis today.
Or yesterday.
Or the day before.
Going stir crazy.
Was able to bring table tennis into a conversation today at work (all 4 of us there as against 30ish normally in), but that was about activities for seniors in a locked down world.
Am not yet at the point of dreaming about table tennis, but may get the bat out, do some minimal amount of service practice and re-sponge it down before returning it to being plastic covered in its case.

Neither retrieving nor chopping at the moment.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

No table tennis again. Did not get motivated enough to even go to my table tennis bag last night when I got home from work.

Continue on the life support of OOAK, MyTT, TT Daily and Pingskills Ask the coach. Checking every day for updates from TTA & TTNSW.

Did watch a video supposedly of funny table tennis points including a few from a JM Saive exhibition match. Wasn't very funny. I guess you have to be in the mood.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

No table tennis over Easter. Just taking daily long walks. And reading the table tennis web forums. Not reached the cold shower stage yet.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

No table tennis to report again.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

No table tennis to report.

Out of sheer ennui have bought a property out in the country, towards where Dusty lives. Will probably move the table at home to it, but not for table tennis use. The other half likes it for sewing. Of course that is without Annette.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

No table tennis again. Went and clandestinely met my daughter at an undisclosed Macca's car park somewhere in the rural areas to give her a new laptop. Social distancing was observed at nearly all times. We didn't want to drop the laptop.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Still no actual table tennis.

But I did tell the local committee that I can't continue to run Saturday afternoons at the community centre every Saturday when we do eventually go back for reasons already discussed both there and here. They still want me on the committee though. I suspect that I will be co-ordinating who has the key for the rest of the year.

I was also enthused enough to get my bat out, clean it and put the protective plastic sheet back on a little more completely.

Not enthused enough to practice serving or shadowing shots though.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Another weekend without table tennis.

I did however get to test the veracity of "... is better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick". Where ... is just about anything.

2 visits to the local emergency department, an eye patch (arrrgh me hearties!) and a few applications of antibiotic eye ointment and drops later, and I can go see (see what I did there) an optometrist (see I did it again) at the end of the week to check that the 2 scratches in the cornea have fully healed.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Another week without table tennis.

Went to the optometrist and got good news and bad news.

Good news - he couldn't see any scratches on the cornea of the left eye.

Bad news - left eye vision has worsened more than right eye vision in a year and a bit. A coincidence? Who knows?

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Still no table tennis, but ...

I think I saw a certain notorious ex TTA CEO earlier this week in the street.

I wasn't thinking quickly enough to say anything to him. The only things that came to mind were about losing all that money in the Australian Open, which I am sure he either couldn't or wouldn't talk about. Also his name didn't readily come to mind either, despite having met him and talked a few times over the years at previous Australian Opens and other TT things. Oh well.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74