They say the sun shines on the righteous – well the various sporting clubs of the New Milton area must be doing something right as we nearly had the perfect June day, if only the wind had been a little less it would have been 10/10.

Having had a kind offer from Steve Hemmings who was all set to transport a table from Mudeford Wood, at the eleventh hour I received a phone call from Jamie Burton at New Forest District Council to say how please he was that we were taking part and would it be useful if he brought a couple of the “PING!” tables to the event for our use. We had one inside a fairly decent sized square tent and one just outside, Jamie parking his large van alongside to create a further wind break. Despite the gusts which made for interesting play on the outside table in the morning, this largely settled down later in the afternoon and all participants seemed to thoroughly enjoy their table tennis experience.

An ingenious device to encourage the youngsters’ participation was that they were each given a card with spaces for coloured stickers granted when they had taken part in each sport – having tried at least six sports they could collect a nice medal from the organisers – so we had no shortage of takers.

First on the scene at crack of dawn as usual was Julie Smillie, followed soon by me and Malcolm Floyd. Steve Hemmings, Frank Handy, Cameron Golding and Silvia Smith who were all a tremendous help. Other club members showing support including Malcolm Douglas and our club President Bob Fagan, both of whom could afford a more brief visit but who also enjoyed this.

Many other sports were represented along with displays in the arena with welcome refreshments including burgers, ice cream (of course!) – a beer tent and a few more healthy options. All in all a really good day from which I’m sure we’ll pick up a few new members.