Category: Activities

Things we do in the club

Holiday in Avon Tyrrell – Saturday – Poole Boat Trip and Fish and Chips

Our little convoy set off for Poole, where we found somewhere to park near the Quay.
Half our group boarded the Dolphin III, an accessible boat operated by the Friends of the Dolphin. The other half explored Poole, including a stop for ice cream, and for some a visit to Poole Museum.

Both groups met up to eat our sandwiches on the Quay, and then the afternoon boat party set off for our nautical adventure !

We all enjoyed our trip.

They even laid on a Optimist Dingy race for us !
Some of us even had a chance to take the helm !

 
Finally we had to return to rejoin the other group.

We all dined on fish and chips

and had our traditional group photograph on the Quay

Can you spot the difference ?
Finally we returned to Avon Tyrrell to eat cake, chat and play games.

Phab Holiday in Avon Tyrrell – Friday – Travelling, Archery and Campfire

So many people (24) went this year that we used 5 cars. as well as our trusty minibus.

Minibus loaded and almost ready to go.

The weather was lovely, so the journey was dreadful ! As well as the normal attraction of a day at the seaside the Bournemouth Air Festival was in progress. Since its formation in 2009 the festival claims to have entertained over nine-million people, and they were all on the roads between Oxford and Avon Tyrrell that day !
We arrived, only a little late for the Archery session we had booked, hastily ate our sandwiches and unleashed our inner toxopholite (shoot arrows in the general direction of the target).


After archery we unloaded our luggage, and our valiant kitchen team cooked the choices we had selected of spaghetti  bolognaise, pasta carbonara, or a vegetarian pasta option.
Another keen group of forest foragers had been gathering wood and pine cones, and we had another campfire in the fire pit next to the cabin.

We also had cherry tomatoes and baby sweetcorn as a vegetarian option, but delicious for everybody.

Barbeque at Simon and Sarah’s

Although the weather started hot, as it had been for many weeks of uninterrupted sunshine, shortly after we started to eat our delicious burgers, it started to rain.

The rain was much heavier than last year, when we had to shelter from showers, and we abandoned the gazebos, and retreated indoors, filling Simon and Sarah’s flat to capacity. The chefs soldiered on under difficult conditions, and we enjoyed our meals, in rather cosy conditions.

Zumbathon – fun fundraiser.

We picked a hot evening for our Sponsored Zumbathon, but George’s enthusiasm, and plentiful supplies of water and squash kept us going.
That, and the need to raise funds to keep doing fun things. Some members have individual donation pages for the event. If you know someone who has one please use it, or the paper form if they are using those. Otherwise donations are welcome via the Club Fundraising page at https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/oxfordphabclub.

High Energy George, even in the heat

No slacking for us either !

Following Kelly’s lead

 
Two Georges

To find out more about our Fundraising, and how you can Donate, please see our Donate page.
 

Cookery Night

We did a survey of our members to see what we should cook, asking everyone to rank the dishes in order out of these choices.

  • Noodles
  • Pizza
  • Burgers
  • Mexican

The winners were Noodles and Pizza (though we also cooked burgers for those who did not eat either of the group winners)

Preparing ingredients in the kitchen

 
Before the start of the club night a small team prepared the ingredients for all the dishes we were going to cook, and made pizza dough.

Members chose their selection of toppings and put them on a pizza base. We had

  • cheese
  • passata
  • spinach leaves
  • mushrooms
  • spring onions
  • pineapple
  • peppers
  • sweetcorn
  • chicken, which we had cooked in the preparation stage
  • sausages, also pre-cooked and chopped up

The preparation team had been busy !
The pizzas were put into the oven in batches.
And were then enjoyed !
We also had mixed salad, and fruit salad for those who wanted to add some healthy extras.

After the pizza round we had a choice of vegetarian noodles, with mushrooms, broccoli and peppers, or a chicken and cashew nuts one – or a bit of both !
Many thanks to Maria who masterminded the event.

Playing Beetle

The object of the game is to draw a Beetle, rolling a dice to see which bit you can draw next, but you have to have a body or a head before you can start to add other pieces to them. Some throw swiftly – in some cases so swiftly that the dice ends up on the floor, others take their time, focussing on the dice and willing the elusive six (or five) to get them started.
The first player to complete a Beetle calls out and everybody stops, and counts the score of the pieces they have drawn, and then the player with the highest score at each table moves to the next table clockwise, and the lowest score moves anti-clockwise. The game is thus sociable as well as allowing us to practice our mathematical, in in come cases, artistic talents (some people draw really elaborate beetles, while others – don’t).

Boccia – It's my favourite !

We all enjoy Boccia, and some really enjoy it. The “It’s my favourite” exclamation was the response by one of our Oxford Phab members to finding that we were playing Boccia that night. As usual we play in the Hall at Wesley Memorial Church, which makes a great space for it.
This week we were especially fortunate that Tom, who actually knows the proper rules, was directing operations, and giving generous doses of encouragement.