The premier sport eNewsletter in Australia Editor Frank Funari , Graphics Nerio Nespeca and Photographs BA , Raymond Cher & others FEBRUARY 2020 Copyright Bocce Australia Top stories in this newsletter

Nationals 2020 What future for Two power clubs Hop on & support Morwell …. the CMSB? to compete for Bushfire recovery top Club of 2020 in your region! Read More... Read more... Read more... Read more... Morwell getting set to host the Australian Men’s and Women’s Bocce National Championships 2020 The Championship will be held at one of Regional Victoria’s elite indoor boccedromes the Morwell IASC Boccedrome – home to many Australian Bocce International players plus the Bocce Smash team – Morwell Power.

Last held in Adelaide in 2019, Victoria are the reigning men’s Champions & Sth Australia are the Women’s Champions seeking to keep their winning as the top State teams in the 50-year history of the Championship. Bocce players from all around Australia will compete at this years Nationals.

General Manager of Morwell Italo-Australian Club , Cassandra Rendell said: “We look forward to welcom- ing the Nation’s best players to the Australian Senior Bocce Championships as the host club”.

“It’s not often that Morwell best bocce players get to participate in a National Championship in their own backyard, but the Morwell players will relish the opportunity to join their Australian men’s and women’s teams in 2020 who get this chance. "This event is a great opportunity for our elite teams to take centre stage and show the excitement and skill of this format of the game.

“Bocce Australia is proud to partner with the Victorian Government’s Significant Sporting Events Pro- gram, City of Latrobe & Bocce Victoria to host the championships ” said Vince DiMauro, BA Finance Director. ff What future for the CMSB - Confederation Mondiale Sport ? The Confederation Mondiale Boules Sport (CMSB), which since 1985 has brought together the three main international federations:

1) Petanque (FIPJP); 2) Sport-Boules (FIB) ;3) Raffa Bocce (CBI) plus for a few years also Lawn .

The CMSB is an organization recognized by the Inter- national Olympic Committee (IOC) and which has been the candidate for boules sports at the 2024 . The presidents of the 3 main interna- tional bowls federations met in February in Montalieu Vercieu (France) to define the future changes of the CMSB.

Claude Azéma for the FIPJP, Frédéric Ruis for the FIB and Mutlu Turkmen for the IWC had a meeting to assess the bid that had been submitted to the Organ- ising Committee of the Olympic Games, a bid that narrowly failed last autumn. Also on the agenda were the financial balance sheet and the future of the L-R: Frédéric Ruis and Mutlu Turkmen. CMSB. The three Presidents, surrounded by their inset : Claude Azéma. delegations, were unanimous in saying that the CMSB, which is an association of federations, must evolve. They thus laid the foundations for a future single International Federation bringing together all bowls sports into one. (Sounds a bit like Bocce One! ). “A new constitution for the future—one world federation of bocce!” STOP PRESS—Frédéric Ruis, appointed acting president of the CMSB. Among other duties, Frederic will be in charge of drafting the statutes of the future one bocce federation. The delegations present were : • FIPJP: Claude Azéma, Michel Signaire and Stéphane Pintus. - CIB: Mutlu Turkmen, Rosati Moreno and Hector Alberto Limardo. - FIB: Frédéric Ruis, Denis Persic and Roberto Favre. - CMSB: Secretary General, Christophe Levaillant.

Fib bulletin. ff

Hop on and support Bushfire recovery in your region! I'm sure the damage from Australia’s bushfires has touched every- one in some way, and to see the help in clothing, food and finan- cial support has been impressive. - it is good to see that the ’True Blue' attitude of helping your mate still exists in Australia. It will take months and years before some of these communities are rebuilt and get back to a normal way of life. As a sport what can Bonang Road, Orbost, East Gippsland, we do to help these communities? Victoria, photographed by Greg Briggs February 2020. We could run a special bocce event & raise funds to donate, send food, water & clothing but what these communities will need in the very near future if not now, is for people to travel to these regions and spend money in the lo- cal businesses. In this way money flows through the local community by way of spending monies in ac- commodation, restaurants and tourist attractions. Some state governments have set about putting in place a program like the `Business & Sport for Bush- fire Recovery’ program. It has already won enthusiastic backing from business chiefs who have pledged to hold meetings, events or conferences in a bushfire-affected regions over the next six months and then through the rest of 2020. More than 115 organisations have already backed the initiative, including the AFL, NAB, Herald & Weekly Times, Collingwood Club, Australia, Crown, Tennis Australia, Alibaba, Swisse, PWC, Bosch Australia and Australian Super.. Likewise Bocce Australia have signed up to this program, As Mallacoota local Jodie York says “ We need you to come….that’s the best way you can help.” The respective State Government tourism and events companies, have already put in place a range of marketing activities to promote the experiences on offer for visitors to regional areas impacted by the fires, floods and droughts. The Age newspaper’s Domain National magazine ran a special edition on 21 February 2020, on the ‘Road to recovery’ covering the eastern states from Southern Queensland to South Australia. Edited by Alice Stolz (Domain national managing editor), the edition pulled together a comprehensive guide to where to go, how to get there and where to stay. As Alice put it “…..the fire affected communities and sur- rounding areas, some which are unsinged physically but still feeling the emptiness of visitors fleeing their re- gion, they quite simply need us to visit.” So, let’s get back on the road and we say to all our members and fellow bocce enthusiasts get on board and go visit the regions. Organise bocce regional tours or go with your family & friends and help them rebuild so that they get on the Road to Recovery! ff

Two-thirds of Kangaroo Island remains open to visitors. Regrowth on a fire-burnt tree on Mount Wilson, Blue Photo: Ben Goode / South Australian Tourism Commission Mountains. Photo: Helena Dolby Bocce Australia Celebrates 50 years…. We started this series last month, with the medal for the 1970 Champi- onship, but the story of Bocce in Australia started well before 1970. Some time in the 1850’s during the gold rush days, when Europeans from Switzerland, France and northern Italy came looking to find their fortune and with them they brought many traditions from their home country and a game called ‘bocce’. Some of the first bocce games can be found in the history books of Daylesford, a country town in the gold fields of Victoria . It is also rumored that when Garibaldi, the unifier of Italy who landed on Three Hummock Island near Stanley in 1852 also sailed around the south coast of Australia stopping briefly in Geelong, played a game of bocce with his shipmates while waiting for supplies to be loaded. Fast forward to the 20th century and the post-war years with increasing number of European migrants arriving in Australia‘s shores, the traditional game of bocce began to make its mark in the new country. It was a link to home, a lifeline. Over the next decade or two bocce would grow from a casual game played by friends, families, in the parks, laneways and back yards to a more formal competition network. Most small European clubs around the nation evolved with bocce as their base—Maltese, Italian, French, Swiss-Italian, Spanish, Slovenia, Istrian, Croatian and the many other states of former Yugoslavia. In Melbourne it was the Fogolar Furlan club formed in 1964 in Thornbury, with four bocce courts built along its side that was the mega centre for Bocce in Melbourne. It was the foresight of Raymond Cher then secretary of the Furlan Club and fellow bocce pioneer Virginio Turco that in 1967 established the first Bocce Association tin Australia, the Victorian Bocce Federation. The first National Championship was held in Melbourne at the Fogolar Furlan Club in 1970 Virginio Turco —first and remains the premier National Bocce event to this day. Although not all states were President of Bocce involved it was not till a few years later when all states signed up that it was truly a national Australia championship and a national organisation. In that first national championship, a young mane named Agostino Martini took the singles titles and forty years later, in 2010 Agostino would be inducted into the Bocce Australia Hall of Fame. ff

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L-R: 1) Raymond Cher speaking at the podium 3 at a National Championship, early 1970s with Tony Pegoraro and Virginio Turco seated n the background. 2) Agostino Martini—Winner of 1st Singles Can you name the players in the following ? 3) Bocce players in early 1970’s celebrating. 4 4) Winners of the 2nd National Championship.

Excerpts from ‘A small corner of Veneto—A history of the Veneto Club by Jenny Mountstephen. Photo’s courtesy of Ray Cher, BFV and BA. Two power clubs to compete for top Bocce Club 2020 !

Veneto club Melbourne wins BFV 2020 club championships and win the right to compete at this years Australian national champi- onships in Morwell in June 2020.

They will compete against current national club champions Marconi club who will be all out to defend there title.

It has been a stellar 12 months for Bocce at the Veneto club, having successfully resurrected their mar- quee event the Doubles Slam last November; continued growth with the #VC Bocce program & now the jewel in the Victorian Bocce crown, winning the BFV prestigious title of Victorian State Club Champions.

Veneto Club Players L-R: Andrew Pozzer ,Mark Pozzer ,Sebastian Mezio, Steven Van Meeuwen, Craig Ryan , Don Di Federico and (not in photo— Enrico Gatto).

They will be pitted against their old foe the Marconi Club who will automatically get a slot to defend their Title, even though the NSW Club Championship has not yet been finalized. Irrespective Marconi Club will be there and maybe another NSW club depending on the final results of the NSW Bocce Club Championship. ff The 2019 winners Marconi Club L-R: Nicole Samsa, Daniela Samsa, F.Mammone, D.Samsa, Team Manager V.Chiandotto, ( BA VP T.Biancacci presenting the BA Club Trophy to the Team Manager) and G.Marraffa. BOCCE RAFFA ASIA OCE- ANIA Championships post- poned to September 2020 ! Team Australia Bocce Raffa will have to wait till September to compete to qualify for the World Titles in 2021. The Team of Joe Rozzo, Giuseppe Maraffa, Diane Penney and Mary Massena have a few more months to prepare for these championships, due to the Coronavirus global epidemic. The Championship will consist of five events—Men’s & Women’s Singles, Doubles and a Mixed Doubles. The top 3 place getters in each event will qualify for the World Championships in 2021. The biggest bocce stars from Team Australia will be at Knox Club at this Years Special O’s Bocce!

Dino Mikolic, Tony Palermo & Angelo Parisi will be some of the elite Team Australia players that will be at Knox Bocce courts on 4th April 2020. Thanks to Michael Migliaccio initiative the Team Australia players will share their experiences and skills with players from the Eastern Ragers wanting to make it to the top of their sport Bocce. The Summer State Games are a regular feature and bocce is one of the many sports that players can compete and is a pathway to SpecialO’s National and International bocce championships. Bocce Australia welcomes

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