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March 2018 • ALAMO TODAY & DANVILLE TODAY NEWS • PAGE 1
& MARCH 2018
BOCCE: NEW IMAGE FOR AN OLD SPORT
By Jody Morgan
Danville’s eight bocce courts at Sycamore Valley Park, are a popular place on weekday evenings from spring through fall as teams come together for camaraderie and competition. Once considered a pastime riveting only to octogenarian men, bocce is now a fast-growing sport attracting both women and men of all ages. The basic rules of bocce can be learned in minutes. The nuances are sufficiently subtle to keep players polishing their skills for decades. B o c c e historians suggest a painting found in an Egyptian tomb dating back to 5200 BC is the earliest representation of the game. Two Bocce points are scored by balls closer to the pallino than any of the boys are depicted opposition's balls. Measuring precisely is important. Photo courtesy tossing what may of Cat Bravo. be polished stones or balls. In any case, the sport has evolved over many centuries from the time the Greeks taught it to the Romans. Roman soldiers took time out from military matters to play their version with a small stone as the mark and larger naturally rounded stones for the balls. They occasionally used coconuts. Eventually wooden balls of boxwood, beech, or elm replaced stones as the game gained popularity. Balls wore down readily. Sometimes nails were driven into the balls to improve durability. When factorymade nails became more available during the 19th The Rockin’ Rollers captured the 2017 Fall Friday Night Championship century, bocce Photo courtesy of Palmira Brandt. makers began covering the entire surface of their balls with nails in intricate patterns. Those balls are highly collectible today. “Modern bocce was believed to be popularized by Italian general and politician
See Bocce continued on page 12
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IMPACT 100 EAST BAY
By Linda Summers Pirkle
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?” ~Martin Luther King, Jr. If you are like many people, you have given your time and money to worthy charities. Impact 100 East Bay (www.Impact100EastBay.org) is a new organization that, according to local business woman Nancy Clark and founder of the East Bay chapter, is, “the best kept secret in the area.” The first Impact 100 was started in Cincinnati in 2001 and has since grown through word-ofmouth to more than 50 chapters in the US and abroad. The intent is for women to pool their collective giving ($1,000 per woman) and to award high-impact, transformational, sustainable grants to local non-profit organizations. In 2017, the local Impact 100 group of 55 women joined together and awarded $55,000 in grant money to MISSEY (www.misssey.org) to provide technical training for girls/women who were caught in the sex trafficking industry. “Without the grant money,” according to Clark, “this program that teaches these women skills to build new lives would not be possible.” Clark, who is on the Board of another non-profit (OntheMoveBayArea. org), was reviewing their financials when she noticed a new funder, Impact 100 Sonoma, had provided a generous grant to the group. She spoke to several of the women in Sonoma to determine what it would take to start a group in her local community. She then met with two friends, Pat Burgess and Dee Clapp, to float the idea of starting an Impact 100 chapter. “They were hugely supportive!” Clark recalls. She then hosted a dinner at her house and invited friends to learn about Impact 100. Enthusiasm for the project was immediate, and Impact 100
See Impact continued on page 20
NATIONAL CHARITY LEAGUE
By Fran Miller
National Charity League (NCL) provides opportunities for mothers, known as Patronesses, and daughters, known as Ticktockers, to enjoy both mother-daughter and peer relationships through community service. NCL seeks to inspire and empower women to succeed as confident, well-rounded, and socially aware contributors in their communities. With more than 200 Chapters in 23 states and more than 56,000 total members, NCL embraces the philosophy
See NCL continued on page 16
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