Archive for "Events"
Pickleball Christmas Party at the Pickle Club
Posted on December 20, 2023 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.
The ladies’ pickleball group that normally plays on Wednesdays at the Pickle Club decided to have a Christmas party and gift exchange on Monday night. Here are some pics from that fun event.
These ladies are so much fun! Can’t wait to celebrate with them again.
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Busy Christmas Party Weekend
Posted on December 18, 2023 by Ching under Community, Events.
Kicked off the weekend with Cindy Egan’s annual Christmas party and gift exchange for the pickleball ladies. She is an amazing host and always comes up with the most fun games!
Here are some snaps from that night…
The next night, Brian and I went Chad and Laura Smith’s annual beer and wine gift exchange. I think we decided this was the eighth one.
Here are some snaps from that event…
Brian and I always love going because then we get to try new beers that we’d never even heard of before, and we ultimately find new favorites. For instance, I had no idea that there was such a thing as slushie beers and they are yummy!
Finally, Sunday night (last night) was Katelyn and Susie’s game night at Grant and Susie’s house. I played a couple of games I’d never played before and it was so fun!
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Celebrating Alice
Posted on December 14, 2023 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.
I think I’ve mentioned before that Wichita has turned into everyone’s favorite place to celebrate their pickleball birthdays. This past weekend we celebrated Alice Tunks-Jones, my friend from Emporia’s, 30th birthday.
Our friend Susie Ternes did a fabulous job of organizing and bringing everyone together. She even got this delicious cake.
Here’s a pic of the three of us:
Some of Alice’s friends from all over converged in Wichita as well. It was wonderful meeting everyone.
This weekend will prove to be another exciting one as it is Molly Sager’s turn to celebrate. The Sagers live in Great Bend but will be celebrating in Wichita as well. If you’re having a birthday, and pickleball is part of the festivities, you need to come to Wichita. This is where it’s at – LOL!
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Wichita – Pickleball Birthday Capital of the World?
Posted on December 7, 2023 by Ching under Events.
These are some highlights from Ramon’s birthday celebration at Mortdecai’s a few weeks ago. This month, we have a couple more out of town pickleball friends (Alice and Molly) who are coming to Wichita to celebrate their birthdays. Is it just me or has Wichita turned in to pickleball birthday party central?
Ryan Kellenbarger’s ICT SOS charity tournament also happened earlier that day at Chicken N Pickle. Ramon and Nicole (Mathis) played in it together. Here’s the video from that tournament.
ICT SOS Benefit Tournament
Posted by Ching on Saturday, November 18, 2023
It was a super fun (but busy) weekend overall. We had Wild Lights on Friday night (with Kendra and Colby) and then I had iPN at Sandbox on Sunday morning. Ramon’s birthday was sandwiched in between on Saturday. Anyway, despite the hectic-ness of the weekend, I’m glad Ramon chose to celebrate in Wichita so at least we could participate in celebrating him.
Cheers to another amazing year!
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First Minor League Pickleball Team Tournament in Wichita
Posted on October 23, 2023 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.
I was fortunate to be part of bringing the first ever Minor League Pickleball team tournament to Wichita earlier this month. The iPickle Nation team has been hosting these in the Kansas City area but this was our first one in Wichita.
We had quite a few hurdles to overcome but, overall, I think we had a pretty successful first event. The first hurdle was finding a suitable venue. Riverside Tennis Center had various events going on and was limited on dates that they would be willing to allow us to have. Besides that, we had to dodge a bunch of other tournaments in the region that were happening at the same time and we were running out of warm weather days. In the end, we ended up going with Crestview Country Club because Riverside was going to be too expensive (there was no way we were going to be able to have the event at Riverside and not lose money) and the rate we were able to negotiate with Crestview was much more reasonable.
We ended up with 8 teams each in DUPR 16 and 18 and 4 teams each in DUPR 14 and 20, which was perfect for the number of courts we had. Crestview has six painted pickleball courts and we taped up six additional courts for a total of 12 on event day. We taped up courts and set up nets on Saturday night and were all set to go first thing on Sunday morning.
Visit Wichita, our local visitors’ bureau, was a huge help as well. They set up group rates at a couple of nearby hotels for our out of town players. It worked out great.
I did host three players from a DUPR 18 team that I helped put together (Genevieve Eskridge from Tulsa, Craig Morford from Kansas City, and Gloria Knoles from Nebraska teamed up with Chris Wilson and formed “Strangers with Candy” team) and helped find housing for some others but for those players who we couldn’t find free housing for, Spring Hill Suites and Tru next to Chicken N Pickle offered really good rates for our group. It was perfect too because those who stayed there could easily walk over to Chicken N Pickle.
I always get super cranky and stressed out but thankfully I have Brian who is always such a huge help. He helped us set up on Saturday and Sunday and, although he left for part of the event to take care of some chores and honey-dos, he came back to help tear down after. He is the best!
Anyway, I dream of having many of these types of events here in the future. I feel like Wichita is the perfect location to bring players from all over — Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and so forth — to compete with one another. I can’t wait to see what the future holds!
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