A short history of the Club

We first got together on 14th September 2006 with the aim of holding a weekly social morning for people who enjoyed playing cards, board games, table tennis, who didn't mind a little light exercise and enjoyed the company of others. We have been meeting once a week ever since and we now have around eleven regular members. Since 1st April 2010 we have added darts to our range of games and it's proving very popular.

What do we do?

The exercising part of the morning lasts about 20 minutes and we only do what we feel is good for us and no more and if any of us don't feel up to it on a particular day, then so be it!. It is not strenuous exercise and the only apparatus we use are light weights, elastic exercising bands, chairs and step-up step. Our exercising session is always accompanied by music and you don't know from one day to the next what music it's going to be, as the iPod is in charge of that!

Table tennis is very popular in the group and we have several very good players. Of course, playing table tennis is good exercise in itself and it keeps you young - just look how young we all look!

The most popular card game is definitely cribbage, or cribbidge as it was originally called and we are all very competitive. We held a Singles Cribbage Championship in 2008 and the winner of the first ever Stretch Crib Tournament was Kitty Dawson. The 2009 champion was Maureen 'Count 'em up' Hopkins. We also play whist and pontoon and some other sillier, not so serious card games. We were given a game called Sequence and that has proved to be a popular choice amongst the board gamers, but we all agree that the board was designed by someone with perfect eyesight and that there should be a special version for the not so young!

There is always time for a good old chinwag no matter what activity we are doing and this is partly what makes the Stretch mornings so relaxed and friendly.