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Moving With The Times

For more years than I care to remember Doris Steventen ran the Weston And Trent Valley Darts League almost single handed, but towards the sad end of her life, her failing health meant that the league suffered a little. When I took over, my lack of diplomacy upset several teams and furthered the decline of the league. Several teams dropped out within a short interval, then I started to use more tact when dealing with problems and also we became more up to date with the way the league was run. Gradually the dark days disappeared behind us as we are started to attract new teams.

At a committee meeting shortly before the summer league of 2002 started one of the committee members suggested that we seek sponsorship for the league. We discussed it briefly and by the time the league started we had a number of firms interested in placing small adverts on our fixtures that were circulated around the teams. The fees gained from these adverts over the past seasons raised many hundreds of pounds for the league and eased our financial situation to such an extent that for several years we presented every pub in the league with a free dart board courtesy of the league.

Another innovation was to launch our own Web Site. The intention was that it would contain much of the information that was regularly dispatched to the team captains such as fixtures and league tables, for any one to download, but it was my intention to place short articles of interest about things going on in the league as well. With my new found mastery of the E-mail I also E-mailed the results on a weekly basis to the Newsletter (a local newspaper) so that they could print them again as they used to.

Shortly after posting this article on the Weston web-site I decided to add the following notes;-

P.S.
As some of you will be aware I have been rather pleased with myself just lately for launching the website and I have been a bit like a kid with a new toy telling every body about it. The other week when I delivered the fixtures I was taken aback by some of the Landlords comments which  I probably deserved.

Upon entering the Green Man and proudly showing the Landlord the address for the web-site he said "Does that mean you want us to E-Mail the results in to you now?" I politely said no and left. A little later I entered the Crown and announced that I had got the fixtures to which the Landlady said "Oh, I have already got mine off the Internet this morning."  I thought are the Landlords trying to wind me up or something, but the rest of the evenings deliveries were uneventful.