LDA’s board has decided that as from 1st December 2007 the LDA-ranking will be adjusted and that points gathered by their members will only be valid for their full members. All points earned by the candidate-members will be taken off the ranking.

Due to some internal staff developments it has not been possible since the general member meeting of the LDA on 20 April last at Bochum/Germany to publish news by means of this internet site. We can now inform you that the meeting in Bochum has gone well and that the statutes, presented and discussed by President Ms Hennie Nagtegaal have been approved. Since this time, these have been legalised and passed to the notary. Also the governing board, as it presented himself during the meeting, has been accepted by the members. That means that the President Hennie Nagtegaal is supported by Ms Ellen van den Berg, who has herself taken the role as a treasurer. For the position of secretary, a job oppotunity lies open. Marketing falls under the responsibility of Gerry Walters and Chiel van Praag, Ron van den Berg and John Armstrong take the public relations under their wings.

On Saturday 22 April, 266 ladies fought for the singles title of the Open Germany tournament for 2007. As the tournament progressed all but one of the 8 seeds won their way through to the quarter finals. No fewer than 7 were LDA members. Francis Hoenselaar ( seed 1 ),  Anastasia Dobromyslova, ( 4 ), Carla Molema ( 5 ) , Irina Armstrong ( 6 ), Tricia Wright ( 7 ), Carina Ekberg ( 8 ) and Inita Bite, unseeded. The last 16 results can be seen below:

Following Open Antwerp, the second LDA ranked tournament that is not linked to the BDO/WDF ranking is Open Parkstad Bavaria. This tournament takes place on 26 and 27 May 2007 in Hoensbroek in the Netherlands. Prize money for the ladies singles is over €4,200, the first prize being €1,750 and payment is made down to the last 32 ladies. Excellent indeed. The ranking points awarded will be the same as a category 2 WDF tournament i.e. 120 for the winner. Also, the organisers of Open Parkstad have agreed to take seedings from the LDA ranking list. Very positive support indeed. Further more, at the tournament is ladies doubles, first prize €800, and of course mens singles, doubles, and youth. Full details can be found at http://www.openparkstadbavaria.nl

At its last meeting the LDA have agreed that on Friday 20th April 2007 an official meeting will be held. This will take place on the eve of the German Open at the tournament venue. It conjunction with Dietmar Ernst the organisers have granted permission for this meeting to take place. The meeting is open to all interested parties and members and we hope as many will be present as is possible. At the meeting the current board of the LDA will present themselves to you, a presentation about the LDA and its goals will be made, the statutes will be discussed for approval. A financial report amongst other things will also be given. All current members will also receive direct contact with an invitation by email with the agenda. If on the off chance you do not recieve this then please make contact via the website.

Last years winner, Anne Kirk from Scotland, was unfortunately unable to be there this year to defend her title. This years final was fought out between Trina and fellow english player Clare Bywaters. Trina, in her semi final, won from Anastasia Dobromyslova in a closely contested match 4 – 3. Shortly afterwards Clare won from Irina Armstrong 4 – 1. The final went Trinas way with a 5 - 2 win over Clare, and just to complete the day Trina was also on the winning side in the Ladies couples partnering Francis Hoenselaar to a 5 – 1 win over Clare Bywaters and her dutch partner Karin ten Kate. Winmau World Master Francis failed to make the semi finals after losing 3 – 0 to Irina in the last eight, the other last eight were dutch players Marloes Tolboom, Karin Krappen, and englands Dee Bateman. The author understands that Anne Kirk has had minor surgery on her hand and will be out for a while, we at the LDA wish her a speedy recovery and hope to see her back on the oche as soon as possible.

During the forthcoming Dutch Open the LDA will be there with a presentation of its results of its activities and achievements so far. The statutes have been composed and have been approved, and agreement and acceptance will soon be passed. As from the Dutch Open the LDA will set up its own ranking system and the new WDF-ranking will work in conjunction with this. This ranking will get closer to completion with some other lucrative tournaments, like, for example, the Antwerp Open on 14 April. This event, celebrating its 20th anniversary, has for the coming tournament a stipulation that the prize money for the ladies will be in line with the mens.

Back in February 2006, at the Open Dutch tournament in Veldhoven, Netherlands, a meeting was held between a number of concerned players and officials, and interested parties.

Why the concern?

Well the announcement that the World Dart Trophy would no longer involve a womans competition had much to do with it. A strange decision, one would think, considering that the organisers are Dutch, shown on Dutch TV, SBS6, and the current holder was Karin Krappen also Dutch. Even so the decision was made, no ladies tournament this year. Instead a juniors tournament would take place and take over any TV coverage that the ladies had previously enjoyed.

Many reasons and explanations were given, fingers pointed in all directions, but none of that really matters, what really counts is that the ladies, already struggling to gain a fair share of the public viewers, had lost one of the few TV tournaments that they had worked all year to appear in. Of course many people thought that the ladies would just have to accept this decision, forget about the time and financial investment made to achieve the necessary ranking points, but the meeting in Veldhoven was to shake a few people.

Please note we have had several requests from ladies who enroled via our website and made payment available to LDA's bank, based on the details as mentioned on the site. Due to some unforeseen mishappening the IBAN number that was listed is wrong! The correct number is:NL45 PSTB 0002409475 which has been altered on the site now. Our treasurer has checked this matter with LDA's bank who stated that all ladies who made the payments from abroad should get in touch with their bank and ask back their payment done to LDA. After that we kindly ask you to make the payment again to make sure LDA can list you as candidate and send you the items requested.