SIGNALLING the end of yet another memorable curling season, the members of Waterfront Junior Curling Club held their closing bonspiel and annual awards presentation evening.

Tasked with finding suitable alternative accommodation for the awards evening, Billy McDonald, one of the parent coaches, organised the use of the auditorium at his place of employment, Texas Instruments (UK) Ltd at Larkfield Industrial Estate.

The ceremony also marked the final event for Jim Stables, the club’s vice-chairman, who was retiring after 11 years of active involvement, and Lesley Shearer, club secretary, who had completed six years with the club. The occasion was likely to be emotionally charged, as it reached an important milestone in the club’s history.

Before the main part of the evening could start, David Horne, the club’s chairman, delivered a moving tribute to the work done by Lesley and Jim over the years in developing the club from its modest beginnings to the point where it is much envied by other junior curling clubs throughout the country and achieving success in competitions usually claimed by more established teams.

There followed presentations to Lesley and Jim, who were quite overcome by the kindness and generosity of their fellow coaches, junior members and friends.

Jim outlined the highlights of what had been the most successful season in the club’s history.

These included being crowned winners of the RCCC Skill Awards Challenge in Dewars Curling Rink, Perth, the Festive Cup triumph at Braehead Curling Rink, securing of the curling challenge at each of the three Asham Under-14 Slams, securing Gourock Curling Club’s singles and pairs competitions (with one other GCC member) and sealing the hotshots challenge at the RCCC Funspiel at Braehead Curling Rink.

As if that wasn’t enough, the club had four nominations in different categories in the Inverclyde Sports Personality of the Year 2013 awards. These four nominations morphed into four finalists, eventually securing two winners of the prestigious trophies.

In common with previous years, the club conducted two charity fundraising events during the season. The first in September was the Coffee ‘n Curl event to coincide with the Macmillan Biggest Coffee Morning in the World date and raised a staggering £290 in just an hour and a half.

At the beginning of March, 18 determined young curlers rolled up their collective sleeves and despatched 12.5 tonnes of granite up and down the curling ice in their Curl-a-tonne Challenge to set a new ‘world’ record, beating their own of last year by 0.5 of a tonne. In so doing, they raised a colossal £452 for the chosen good cause, R.E.A.C.H. for Autism.

There was also the popular Family Funspiel and equally popular Adults v Juniors match, both extremely well supported.

Throughout the season, all of the juniors had been receiving coaching in the RCCC Skill Awards programme. At the turn of the year, the coaches — having decided that the young hopefuls had reached a satisfactory point in their respective skills attainment — 28 of them presented for assessment. All of them passed their tricky written assessment and 25 also passed the arduous practical on-ice assessment.

All achievers received T-shirts (apart from the metallic categories), badges and certificates from the Royal Caledonian Curling Club.

In the past five years, the club has coached and achieved 108 passes.

Next up were the winners of the club’s annual competitions: Junior Curler of the Year – Stuart Anderson.

Winners of the In-Club League – Team Red comprising: skip Angus Shearer, Jake Hawthorn, Fraser McDonald and Annabelle Hof. Reserve was Nathan Docherty.

Winner of the Points competition – Fraser McDonald.

Best Newcomer – Nicholas Campbell.

Most Improved Curler – Nick Russell.

Curling Personality – Corey Stables.

Best Team Player – Fraser McDonald.

There were also runner-up awards in most of the categories.

Jim expressed the club’s appreciation for the support provided by a number of individuals and organisations throughout the season: Inverclyde Council, Inverclyde Leisure, George Munro and his band of ice technicians for excellent curling conditions, Inverweld Ltd, Newark CC, Greenock Ladies CC, RCCC Waterfront Ladies Branch, Gourock CC and Port Glasgow CC. He also expressed his gratitude to the sports desk of the Greenock Telegraph and the news desk and sports dept of YourRadio FM for the coverage and publicity given during not only this but previous curling seasons. He also paid tribute to Gerry McCarthy, of Texas Instruments (UK) Ltd, for the use of the splendid facility in which the evening’s business was conducted.

He paid tribute to the support and encouragement given by, first of all his wife, Isobel and then all the coaches, parents and friends of the club, both past and present and had arranged a small gift for each of the current group of coaches as well as a Special Recognition trophy for four individuals who had toiled with him from the club’s inception, including one for chairman David Horne.

In response, the coaches presented a magnificent floral arrangement to his ‘long-suffering’ wife, Isobel. David then intimated that the club had asked Jim to accept the role of honorary chairman. This huge honour was readily accepted by him.

In his concluding remarks, Jim referred back to his opening theory regarding the massive leap in the club’s success this year and in an attempt to identify the reason, paraphrased the words from a well-known modern hymn: ‘Change our love (performance) from a spark into a flame’. He suggested that for the past several years, the club had flattered to deceive, they had been the ‘nearly’ boys and girls in local and national competitions and had only realised a spark of their true potential. This year, coupled with the dynamic work of the coaches and in particular that of Jan Howard, that spark had been fanned and had burst into a flame. In many ways that was the easy part over, the trick was to keep that flame alive in future seasons. His final parting words were: “Keep that fire burning brightly and please never, ever let that flame be extinguished!”