LA PICKLEBALL By Dennis Santino We held our annual meeting and had a very good turnout. Thanks all for attending. LAPA has a lot of fun activities scheduled for 2026 starting with our Valentines Day mixer. The LAPA Lake Ashton travel team has started play. We have two teams representing our community. The ladies A team and our co-ed B team. I featured some of our fun pickleball teams but I left out one team that has been having fun for a long time. I asked Kay to give me the history of The Ladies Fun Loving Pickleball Group: About 5 years ago Dianne Macko wanted to play a little pickleball again…she was really a great player who hadn’t played in quite a few years and got a fun group of newbies together and was an awesome teacher of the sport. There were many times she thought we were hopeless, ha! As time went on and thanks to her patience, we persevered and began to love the support! The group was renamed four times, from Dianne’s to Happe’s, Judy’s and today, Joan’s. We have grown from 4 to 16 or more. You can’t find a group at the courts that love the sport more, even though we have many excuses for our mistakes (The paddle has a hole, the wind took the it away, the fog was too thick we couldn’t see the ball, etc.) We welcome all and always laugh, sometimes say a bad word and can make silly comments to each other without anyone getting offended … for us, pickleball is all about having fun as the coach says!!! Thanks to Kay for sharing. Remember my number 1 rule … HAVE FUN! FRIENDLY BOCCE GROUP By Stephanie Iszak We would like to invite all Lake Ashton residents to come out on Monday’s and Friday’s from 10:00am to 1:00pm to play some fun games of Bocce Ball. No experience is required. Anyone who is playing would be more than happy to teach you our rules. The Friendly Bocce Tournament will be held on March 21 (rain date March 22) . Jim and Kay Weaver have graciously agreed to sponsor our tournament again this year. They deserve a “BIG THANK YOU” for their generosity. Team (2 members) sign-up will begin March 2 at 8 am. The tournament will begin 7:45 am with team pictures. Play begins at 8 am. Post tournament awards dinner will be held at Charm City on the Patio at 4 pm. Looking forward to having many new Friendly Bocce players. LA SWIM CLUB By Sandy White Do you like to swim for exercise, pleasure, or both? Do you prefer to swim with others for motivation? Do you want to improve your strokes and endurance? Do you want to aim for senior competition or triathlon? Have you considered participating in the LASC's 100mile Swim Challenge? Are you able to swim two lengths of the pool? If you answered yes to even one of these, you are invited to join the club and swim with us at the HFC pool: Mondays 1 to 2 pm, Wednesdays 1 to 2 pm, and/or Saturdays 10 to 11 am. To find out more or to be included in our e-mail list, contact sandyw1994@aol.com or come during our pool time. 33
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