In September, the GPDA will begin it's second year of promoting darts in the Greater Greenville area. Looking back on the first year I think we had a positive effort in our community getting the word out about our sport. We plan on continuing to grow our organization with some of the projects we could not complete in our first year and some new ideas. More information on these will be announced soon. But for now, I would like to look back at how we impacted the sport of darts, here in our corner of the world, during our first year.
 The inception of our organization was a long time coming and many of the seeds that were sowed years ago, finally developed into a fully functional dart association in September of 2009. A new format was developed with singles play in mind. A flexible schedule was pioneered to make darts work around players schedules and we signed up sixteen members who wanted to make a difference.
 Our first match was played on September 17th with David Howard recording a 2-0/2-0 win over Greg Thomsen at Southern Yankees, and it was off and running. We added to Greenville's rich dart history by having the first singles city championship, the largest and longest running singles event ever staged here. And we crowned champions in 501 and Cricket all while honoring two of our town's greatest dart ambassadors in Ron Beach and Doug Holicky. Our city championships were the first in Greenville history to be held at multiple locations and the Finals at the Irish pub was the first smoke free championship ever played here. Our association, where men and women play equally, produced two worthy champions and true ambassadors to the sport in Sandy Hudson and John Liggett.
 In January, the GPDA sponsored a board at the Foothills Fling, one of only 3 sponsors for the event. The members of the GPDA continue to support the SCUDL and their efforts in promoting the game of darts. Also in January, we began holding ADO playoffs in cooperation with Southern Yankees and sent five members to three regional playoffs this year. Sadly, after years of helping to promote darts, Southern Yankees closed this past summer and it will go down as one of the best dart bars this area has ever known. We will continue to look for new sponsors for these types of events in the future.
 As we compete, we improve our skill level. Strong, local competition provides a foundation for our members to improve their darts, and many have done just that. But we also strive to be ambassadors of the sport. The city championships are funded by the players as is the web site which is one our the most progressive dart sites in the southeast. This year we added an ADO Area 4-3 page which is regularly used by many region players.
 We recently started the 2010 city championships moving them to what will be it's regular starting date in July. We again had sixteen players adding seven new members to nine veterans. All of this gives us a platform from which we can promote our sport and our players. I am currently working on a couple of projects for the GPDA and welcome new ideas and directions for our organization in the future.
 Even though I have said it many times, it bears repeating. I want to thank all of our members for believing that we can make a difference, together we can.


Chuck Hudson
GPDA Director
8-17-2010