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Author: Tracey
Tournament Planning
We have had our second meeting with the team reps:
Here are the details for this year’s tournament:
City Site Rental
Contract verified, diamonds booked, beer garden liability insurance purchased payment of $810 – payment made July 24th.
Ball Diamond Markings – Paul will get the bags and chalk again this year.
Chairs & Tables – Sean Blanchfield will bring his chairs and tables. People should bring lawnchairs in case we need extra seating.
Setup & Teardown – Friday setup families: the committee families.
Sunday teardown families: to be determined over the weekend.
Charity – Major
Make A Wish Foundation of Eastern Ontario
suggested by the Downey family.
They have approved liquor license and we have a link to their information on our website (below).
Charities – Minor
Osgoode Township Care Centre doing BBQ again – Phil is in contact – the barbecue will be run from noon till 7 p.m. We are looking into having another barbecue on site (or keeping theirs) to provide longer food service hours, as evening barbecue can be very busy & profitable.
Kids Corner by O-YA – Tracey is in contact with O-YA
Teams
Confirmed: Blanchfield, Bracken, Brogan, Brophy, Chambers, Churchill, Clingin/Seabrook, Dewan, Downey, Kelly, McEvoy, Moloughney, Quinn, Rowan, Thompson (15). Please note that this year, we have capped our registration at 15 teams in order to host a game between our charity – Make A Wish Foundation – and the Kelly team. The game will take place at 2:30 p.m. Saturday (see schedule posted above) after a brief ceremony and speech by Executive Director Mike Wlotzki.
Roster & Registration Fee Collection: please try to have your registration fees in by your first game – fees are $150 again this year.
Entertainment
Karaoke Friday night with Angie Thompson
Brandy n Port Saturday night
Marty will be getting the stage as usual.
Family Tree Info
Mary Quinn put together some amazing family tree info for us last year. We will continue to post this info this year.
Food
Sandwiches – Brackens are making sandwiches for Friday night. The Chambers and the Clingin/Seabrooks will be making sandwiches for Saturday night. Health department is cool with our setup so that’s good!
BBQ – same as always, we will buy our meat from Osgoode Foodland. The rest of the grocery items will be purchased from Foodland and Robinsons.
Chips etc. – Christine Rowan will get these from chip rep in Metcalfe. She is also looking at getting some Coca Cola products donated if possible. Yay!
Coffee & donuts – Tooti Flood will contact Tim Hortons for a donation of product. Tracey will take care of coffee in the morning.
Bar
Liquor license applied for by Marty Kelly.
Tracey will place order with Mike Raymond. We will go with Canadian, Coors Light, red & white wine, Rye, Rum, Vodka, and Bacardi coolers (whatever is popular – two choices).
Paul will approach Travis Vandentillaart, the Molson rep for cups and some prizing.
If you know anyone that can donate something please ask them – we would like to give prizes to all four finalists as usual.
Troughs – Marty & Paul are getting 2 or 3 – if anyone else has access, please let us know.
Beer Runs – we will schedule 2 beer runs on Saturday – we will need families with trucks to commit to these. Clingins and Rowans have each committed to one.
Ice – we always need ice – if anyone has a contact for ice that would be helpful. Phil will speak with Andy at the store. Chelsea will speak with Scott at the Red Dot. Tracey will get some cubes from Tony at Kelly’s Landing.
Liability Insurance
We are buying from the city again this year. We have purchased only Beer Garden Liability insurance this year, for a total cost of $160.
Kids Area
O-Ya will be manning this for us on Friday night for a few hours and Saturday all day.
Candy: Cathy will pick up 20 tubs of candy from Walmart.
Jelly Bean Draw: Clingins will do this again.
Advertising: Riverside South Mini Storage and Daley Family Funeral Home are generously donating funds this year again. We are not actively seeking advertisers but if anyone is interested we’ll always be happy to set it up!
Scheduling
Paul has done a great job of scheduling again this year! The schedule will show game times as well as umping & scorekeeping duties and bar duties.
Please note that if you are scheduled for umping/scorekeeping that you need THREE (3) family members – two for the field and one to score. If you are scheduled for bar duty, you need FOUR (4) family members (two for tickets, two for service), and all must be of legal age. Please be on time for scheduled shifts, as they work around game times – and the families that you are taking over for may have a game to get to.
Prizing
Prize Distribution:
Each family will bring team MVP prizes again, value $20-$25. Every team also takes home an MVP prize.
Extra Revenue
50/50 draw – Mary will handle this for us this year.
Other raffle items?? any ideas or contacts? see above.
Other Stuff
Media Notification – Tracey has done.
City Dept. notification – Tracey has done.
Handwash Unit – Marty will bring same unit as last year.
Washrooms – We will be renting the washrooms inside the building for a few hours on Saturday (4 till 9). Marty is setting this up. The fee is approximately $25/hr, which will work out to the same amount as the portapotties last year, but we will have access to all washrooms which is money better spent. We will have the outside washrooms as well.
We’re Starting Up Again!
Well it’s that time of year and we are starting to organize the Family Ball Tournament again.
Last year was another great tournament, with $5500 being donated to charity!
We are pleased to announce that this year’s charity will be the Make A Wish Foundation of Eastern Ontario.
About our Charity:
*from their website:
Make-A-Wish Eastern Ontario got started with a little girl’s wish for a trip to Walt Disney World® Resort in 1997. Maureen MacArthur organized a group of volunteers to form a board and the new chapter was officially incorporated and granted charitable status on 1 January 1999.
The Eastern Ontario chapter includes a staff of three and covers a territory that includes Belleville, Kingston, Brockville, Cornwall, Hawkesbury, Ottawa and everything in between. Our area includes the counties of Addington; Carleton; Dundas; Frontenac; Glengarry; Grenville; Hastings; Lanark; Leeds; Lennox; Prescott; Renfrew; Russell; Stormont.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation is celebrating 25 years of creating hope and happiness for children with life-threatening illnesses across Canada. They work with families of children ages three to seventeen, to help fulfill their special wishes at a most difficult time in their lives.
If you know a family who has wants to be a Wish family, or has been one, please let us know! Our funds will go directly to help that family!
Visit their website for more information.
Our Tournament Dates:
This year the tournament will be held on Friday, August 8th and Saturday, August 9th. Same place, Osgoode Community Centre. This will be our 18th tournament! We can hardly believe it.
17th Year is in the Bag!
Well we couldn’t have asked for better weather or better crowds this year.
Final Results:
A Division John Downey Memorial Trophy: Thompsons over the Downeys 12-9. (thanks to Mick Thompson for such a terrific speech..)
B Division Dick Blanchfield Memorial Trophy: Clingin/Seabrook over the Churchills 12-3. (the Churchills happily remaining in the B Division next year!).
The 17th Annual Family Ball Tournament was a great success, and although the final numbers are not quite in, we should be able to give the Palliative Care Outreach Program about $4500. We will also make donations to the Osgoode Care Centre and the Osgoode Youth Association (amounts to be decided).
We had tremendous support from our families this year, from setup to teardown and in between, and we want to say thanks for everything. Marty & I mostly just steered all weekend, and that makes it easy for us to enjoy the weekend also. Every time I turned around someone was asking me what they could do to help. That’s really awesome.
The games were close again this year, with very few high point spreads. No major injuries except maybe a couple of bruised egos – that’s the way we like it! Paul is quite the Merlin with the schedule, I don’t know what we would do without him!
The family tree info was fantastic, thanks so much to Mary Quinn for her countless hours pulling that together. If anyone wants copies of their family information please contact me or her. Of course I was particularly partial to the Everyone’s a Blanchfield list, as it was so much fun to watch people look down the list and the many family names that did, indeed, originate from the Blanchfields of Ireland. 🙂
I hate to single families out because everyone does so much and I don’t like to leave anyone out but I have to give the Rowan family a huge round of applause for once again coming out for teardown on Sunday. Without their efforts the weekend would be tough to wrap up and we really sincerely appreciate their continued support for teardown. (I promise next year I’ll bring coffee!)
Entertainment this year was top rate as usual. The karaoke with J.R. & Kim is just so popular and we are really happy that they keep coming back for us! Vince Thompson was a fantastic addition on Saturday afternoon, and we really hope that he keeps this timeslot free next year! Brandy n Port was back after a few years off and they had as much fun as we did. Great crowds both nights, we hope you all had fun! We only got a noise bylaw warning on Friday night, which is a good thing!
Ozzie & Joan sure made the trailer look comfortable this year – they arrived at the park on Friday afternoon – even before I did! I’ve heard tell that they may have some neighbours in the parking lot next year …
We were inundated with prizes and donations this year, it was terrific – through the efforts of Marty, Mary & Paul, not to mention the Churchills (have I missed anyone major?), we had a fantastic raffle and 50/50 draw that I’m sure will continue next year. A special note too, to Debbie Bellinger who won the 50/50 draw and put the entire amount back into the tournament fund (I’d mention the amount but I’m very sure the gaming commission would be all over us then!!)
Thanks also goes to Sean Daley of Daley Family Funeral Home for their extremely generous donation of $500.
Our list of thank yous is long, we have taken out an ad in the Manotick Messenger this year to try to thank those who helped us out. I will reprint the list here also:
Tournament Sponsor – Daley Family Funeral Home (Sean Daley)
Kids Corner Sponsor – Riverside South Mini Storage (Dan & Tracy Quinn)
Sponsors & Suppliers:
Molson – Travis Vanden Tillaart; Schneider Meats – Jim Turner; Brandy n Port; J.R. & Kim Blanchfield; Vince Thompson; Osgoode Foodland; A. Raymond and Sons; Brian McDonald, Slow Pitch National; Carleton Pumping; Tim Horton’s; Metcalfe Variety; Hostess Chips; Manotick Slo-Pitch League; Westburn Ruddy Electric Supply; Nedco Electric Supply
Prize Donations:
Newton & Company – Phil Byrne; The Churchill Family; Mark McEvoy; Debbie Bellinger; FCI Communications; Southbank Dodge; Jack May; Turkil Sales; Metcalfe Golf Course; Sandy Row Golf Course; The Patterson Family (Emerald Links, Anderson Links, Cloverdale Links); National Golf Course Owners Association; Barry’s Home Hardware Russell; CanWest Media (Ottawa Advertising); Cooper Physiotherapy
(please see thank you links to the right – to reach our sponsors & suppliers websites).
Final thanks goes to all of those who took pictures. I am enjoying looking through Facebook at everyone’s photos of the weekend. I will pilfer a few (with permission) to put up on this website sometime later this week, after I’ve gotten some actual work done. 🙂
Thanks again, y’all rock.
Tracey D’Aviero
on behalf of Marty Kelly, Paul Downey, Phil Blanchfield, Mary Quinn, Martha Rowan, Vince Thompson & Cathy Quinn, and the rest of the team captains.
How Did We Begin?
The Family Ball Tournament is a fun, fund-raising tournament that began 17 years ago in the village of Osgoode. Marty Kelly and his family established the John Downey Memorial Family Ball Tournament after John ‘s fatal car accident following a ball tournament in Ottawa.
Our tournament is comprised of 16 ‘all-family’ teams that play three-pitch in two divisions over the course of a weekend. While the competition is generally friendly, the teams compete for the coveted trophies: the “A” trophy – the John Downey Memorial Trophy, and the “B” trophy – the Dick Blanchfield Memorial Trophy.
The tournament takes place at the Osgoode Community Centre each year, on the ‘weekend after the long weekend’ in August.
It has been said that the weekend is like holding 16 simultaneous family reunions, and indeed there are families who plan their family activities and vacations around the tournament (many coming in from out of town), knowing that they can see many old friends and family in the relaxed atmosphere of the weekend.
The Family Ball Tournament selects different charities each year to direct the proceeds of the tournament, and tries to focus on a major charity as well as one or more local charities, as proceeds allow.
Most of our families have been a part of the tournament for many years (some have been in for all 16 years). Team names like Kelly, Blanchfield, Downey, Quinn, Thompson, Doyle, Bracken, Brogan, Chambers, McEvoy, Moloughney, Dewan, Bekkers, McCloskey, Rowan, Sloan, Brophy and Churchill and their extended families all come out to enjoy the Family Ball Tournament each year. The tournament is limited 16 teams for logistics, and indeed there is a waiting list of families waiting for someone to drop out so that they can get in.
The families involved in the tournament do more than play ball, they volunteer their time to organize, set up, tear down, cook & serve refreshments, umpire & scorekeep, among many other things. The tournament would not survive without the extensive volunteer initiative by our dedicated families.
The Family Ball Tournament is entering the next generation, with many of the original team players stepping aside to let their children play, making it a great family event all around. There are as many spectators as players, and it is always a great social event, as well as really great ball!
In addition to the ball games, there is a licensed refreshment tent, live entertainment in the evenings, and kids activities.
