newssept2003

© Gary Bradley 2003- all rights reserved,

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News in August

September 2003

Its getting close to the end of another Season of Bowling and nearly time for the Indoor Carpet at Inverclyde to take a bashing as players who do not have much to play for get ready to either shift indoors or to pack the Bowls into hibernation for the cold winter months ahead.

I hope that you have enjoyed your Season and that this Site has helped with that enjoyment. This Season has seen the creation of another two Inverclyde Clubs joining the 'Cyber-age' and producing Web-sites for us all to log onto and follow the progress of the year. Its great to see and I hope that many other Clubs follow suit. This Site continues to grow and so does the amount of traffic that logs onto it on a daily basis.

This Table shows the amount of times the Index Page has recorded a visitor to the site and this does not include visitors who bypass that page and log straight onto another page. In a recent survey I had on the site, it showed that almost 30% of visitors view the site on a weekly basis and its knowing that I am providing a worthwhile service that keeps the desire to keep the site constantly updated.

Visits Per Month

Sep 2003 110

Aug 2003 1,197

Jul 2003 1,125

Jun 2003 1,411

May 2003 939

Apr 2003 800

Mar 2003 664

Feb 2003 649

Jan 2003 619

Dec 2002 455

Nov 2002 501

Oct 2002 498

Over the Winter Months, i get a chance to take a break from the never ending work involved during the hectic Summer Season, but that does not mean the site will be completely static during this time, the Quiz will soon revert back to a weekly basis and I intend to complete the 'History of Bowling' Section and hopefully get a few more 'Player Profiles' added too. Around December you will probably see that the 'Contents' page will have all of Season 2003's information moved aside into its own section, similar to what I have done for past years, and then get down to work for the new 2004 Season.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank the many people who have helped with the upkeep of this Site. Firstly 'You' the visitor! Without a regular supply of visitors viewing the site, there would be no point in spending endless hours spent in front of my PC painstakingly trying to beat deadlines to get the scores on etc. the Committee and Members of Gourock Park, whose help and support i am very grateful for, to the Sponsors, whose donations to Club funds have helped to keep the running costs of the site down. To John Freeburn, for all this help in supplying me all the important scores and for putting up with me when i pointed out the odd error or 3 in his weekly league updates!! Cheers Basher!. To everyone who has either wrote to me or left messages on the Guestbook with kind comments on a job well done

Thanks to you all! Gary Bradley

Coming Attractions



Saturday 6^th September	R.B.A Friendly	Gourock Park 2.30pm
Sunday 7^th September	Wellington Friendly	Gourock Park 2.00pm
Saturday 13^th September	Wm Spence Mixed Pairs	Gourock Park 1.30pm
Sunday 14^th September	G&D Triples	Gourock Park
Satuday 20^th September	Fish & Chip Floodlit Nite	Gourock Park 7.30pm
Friday 26^th September	Civic Reception	Greenock Town Hall
Saturday 27^th September	Closing Day	Gourock Park
Friday 3^rd October	Nite at the Dugs	Shawfield Stadium Glasgow
Friday 5^th December	Race Nite	Factory Club(Full details available soon

Coming Attractions for Members

The William Spence Mixed Pairs was won by Mrs A Kelly and Arthur Rennie who defeated Mrs M Mc Laren &

Andy Kearns in a Final played over 11 ends following a Round -Robin in which they didnt lose a single game during the competition held at the Club on Saturday 13th.

19th September 2003

Inverclyde Council's decision to close all Public Bowling Greens, Putting Courses and Tennis Courts to public access on a Sunday is in my opinion a shocking one and I hope they receive loads of backlash from the general public for coming up with this stupid way of saving money. Apparently they have come to their decision to cover the cost of laying and maintaining the Flowerbeds along the main road from Greenock to Port Glasgow. Okay these flowerbeds do brighten up this rather dull stretch of road into and out of Greenock, but are they worth it if its going to deprive the general public of the chance to enjoy some well earned leisure time on a sunday afternoon. Its not that long ago that I stood and listened as our Provost said he and the Council were committed to helping the sport of bowling in any way they can, which was at an event for the youngsters of the district, well excuse me Mr Provost! but this is not in any way helping!. Dont you realise that by closing greens on a Sunday that you are going to deprive these same Kids of a chance to learn the sport on one of the only two days they get off from school in a normal week. Not only that but also by this decision many of our local Clubs are going to miss out on the chance to hold major Scottish, Renfrewshire and Greenock & District games due to the fact that the organisers of these events may not risk planning any events at these greens if theres a chance all they will find are padlocked gates.

Now I know the majority of Bowling Clubs and its members will all rally round and organise for each green to be kept open if only for its own Members, simply because of their love of the sport, but even by doing this there are questions to be posed. If for example the committee at Gourock Park take it in turns to handle the duty of opening and closing the greens on a sunday, are we allowed to let members of the public on for a game and if so does the Club keep the proceeds of either ticket money for either bowling, tennis or a game of putting?. Also what are the implications of insurance, security during this do it ourselves period?

Surely there must be other ways of recouping the cost of these flower beds? The equally silly decison to switch on the Christmas Lights in November, just because Paisley and Glasgow do, is one decision that could be reversed to save a few thousand.

It was not that long ago that there was rumours that the Council were looking at the possibility of closing some of our Public Greens and I think we should all be wary of this decision by our elected Council. This might just be a stepping stone towards the total demise of some of our oldest and proud Clubs.

We must try and have some kind of protest! I urge everyone one of you to write into the Council to show your disapproval at this decision, start a petition, lobby your MP etc etc. Are these Flowerbeds worth depriving the general public of something to do on a Sunday afternoon? I dont think so!!

15th September 2003

25th September

The last Wapinshaw of the Season on closing day on Saturday will be run as a 'Crown Bowls' fun game.This was decided by the Committee following the success of a similar event earlier this year.

Any Members who are going to Friday's Civic Reception are reminded that they are requested to wear Bowling Uniform.

Virus Warning!!!!

There are another couple of bad viruses doing the rounds just now which you should be careful about. One of them is contained in a mail which appears to come direct from Microsoft and contains an

attachment advising you to open it and install!! DONT!!!!!!!!! Microsoft do not send attachments out with any mails. Also the MS Blast Virus and several variants of it are also still causing havoc as pointed out in the following mailing from my ISP

It is essential that you check to see if you are affected by either of these viruses and to take steps to remove them from your machine and download some software from www.microsoft.com to protect your computer from future infections.

STEP 1 . DOWNLOAD THE MICROSOFT PATCH (IT IS VITAL YOU TAKE THIS STEP FIRST)

IF YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE THIS, PLEASE NOTE THAT A NEW PATCH WAS RELEASED ON 10 SEPTEMBER 2003. IT IS VITAL THAT YOU UPGRADE TO THIS PATCH EVEN IF YOU DOWNLOADED THE ORIGINAL PATCH.

You need to visit www.microsoft.com/downloads and download the .Blaster Critical Security Patch. for your Operating system.

Once you have completed this step, it will secure your machine against future infections from MSBlast and Welchia.

STEP 2 - IDENTIFYING IF YOU HAVE A VIRUS (IT IS VITAL YOU CHECK FOR ALL THE VIRUSES)

1. Hold down the CTRL +ALT+ DELETE keys all at the same time - A new window will appear on the screen.

2. Select the .PROCESSES. tab within the window by clicking on it once with your left mouse button . This should show you a list of processes that are currently running.

3. If the following processes are present in the list:

. DLLHOST.EXE

(If present this means it is possible your computer is infected with Welchia)

. SVCHOST.EXE

(If present this means it is possible your computer is infected with Welchia)

. MSBLAST.EXE

(If present this means your computer is infected with MSBlastA)

. PENIS32.EXE

(If present this means your computer is infected with MSBlastB)

. TEEKIDS.EXE

(If present this means your computer is infected with MSBlastC)

. MSLAUGH.EXE

(If present this means your computer is infected with MSBlastE)

. ENBIEI.EXE

(If present this means your computer is infected with MSBlastF)

STEP 3 . REMOVING THE VIRUSES

For MSBlast

To remove MSBlast, please visit the following link and follow the instructions on how to automatically remove the MSBlast virus:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.removal.tool.html

For Welchia

There is also a tool, which will automatically remove the Welchia virus from your computer. Please visit the following site and follow the instructions presented to you:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.welchia.worm.removal.tool.html

Additional Information

The nature of these viruses means that unknowing to the user concerned, when they are browsing the Internet, they are sending out data to other users. Although this data does not give out any information regarding the infected customer to other Internet users, the fact that so much data is being sent out by so many customers had lead to a reduction in performance for customers using the Tesco.net network. You may well have been affected by such degradation in performance yourself.

What happens if I am infected by one of the viruses and take no action?

It only takes a relatively small number of infected customers to affect the performance of other Tesco.net customers. Therefore to ensure we continue to uphold our high levels of network performance, we will shortly be restricting Internet access to customers who are infected by these viruses. These customers will be .detained. in restricted area of the Internet which only gives them access to sites that enable them to disinfect their computer and download the software .patch. to prevent future infections. To ensure you are not restricted in such a manner, it is important that you take steps NOW.

What to do if you have not downloaded the Microsoft .patch..

If you have not downloaded the software patch from the Microsoft site, it is VERY important that you do so as soon as possible. To download and install the Microsoft patch, please follow the following instructions:

Additional Help

One of the effects of the viruses is that they can cause your machine to continually .re-boot. (that is constantly re-start). If you hare tried the above steps and found it difficult to stay connected to the Internet long enough, you can request a CD which contains a copy of the Microsoft patch by calling our free phone Service Announcement line on 0800 519 2345 and leaving your name and address.

Many thanks

Tesco.net Support Team ( Please Note the number above is for Tesco Net customers only)