Welcome back to another season of bowling at Mann Park and a special welcome to our new bowlers! Our greens are now ready for us to start practice and play. Daily draws will start this week and, since the Aggregate games begin the week of May 15th, there will be an afternoon draw each day this week starting on Monday, May 8th. I hope to see lots of returning members there! Most leagues will also start this coming week and I wish all participants an enjoyable year of competitions!
Get to know our coaches! We are very fortunate to have such a great team of coaches available to work with our twenty or so novices who are exploring our sport or who have already signed up for a year of bowling. I believe these coaches would also welcome questions from any of our members about the techniques and rules of lawn bowling. Learn who the coaches are by viewing their pictures on the poster you can find on the bulletin board.
Bowls for last year’s novices: If you have not yet purchased your own set of bowls, you may have to consider getting serious about doing just that. First-year bowlers have first priority in selecting the bowls that are provided by the Club. Once all those selections have been made and the boxes are marked accordingly, last year’s novices may have the opportunity to rent a set of bowls from the remaining supply. The cost is $45.00 for the season, payable to Mann Park Lawn Bowling Club. Any second-year bowler interested in renting should get in touch with our Coaching Director, David Tones.
Bowlers using the Club bowls are reminded that this equipment must stay at the Club unless special arrangements are made in advance with David Tones.
Important Notice about re-spotting the jack: The Conditions of Play will be announced by the Coordinator at the beginning of each event (league, visitation, competition, etc). However, a decision was made by the Board of Directors that, for all games played at Mann Park (unless otherwise regulated by Bowls BC for competitions), when the jack goes out of bounds, it will be re-spotted on the centre line at the 2 meter mark. Please refer to rule 56.5 for further details. Additional 2 meter measuring sticks will be made and placed around the field of play for easy access.
A special request to all skips: Please respect the training that has been provided by our Coaching Team and resist the temptation to share your comments on what corrections need to be made. If you see something in their technique that needs attention, suggest that the novice check back with their coach about that aspect that you’ve observed. The more consistent the training is for the novice, the better chance they have of developing into a contented and successful bowler. Also, please remember that they are new to our sport and will need some time to develop so they will need our patience and understanding.
About our Games: Watch for emails from Wanda Taylor as she has put together a great season of leagues, visitations and hosted competitions. Wanda has done a tremendous job of organizing our games over the past several years and is now looking for someone to be her understudy and eventually take over the role. If you are interested in any aspect of the games (not the daily draws), please have a chat with Wanda.
Help needed for Visitations and Special Events. The role of Social Director is too large a job for one volunteer. When Linda Cooper took on the role, she was willing to do all of the big dinners but had expected someone else to take on the smaller events such as tea & dessert for visitations and hosted events. We need to have someone step up immediately to take on this part of our hosting obligations at Mann Park. There are a number of veteran and willing volunteers to assist at the events but we need someone to do the coordination. Please get in touch with Linda Cooper to learn more about what the role involves.
Speaking of Teas … At the Semi-Annual General Meeting, there was discussion and a vote which led to the decision to host a tea at all Saturday daily draws. As many of the people who had already committed to coordinate the Saturday draws for a month (or more!) would not have known this at the time they volunteered, it wouldn’t be fair to now saddle them with this additional duty. Therefore, the Board of Directors has agreed that the Saturday Tea events will depend on finding a volunteer to do the set-up and clean-up – someone different from the daily draw coordinator. If you are willing to manage these small teas, please talk to the Daily Draw volunteer for that period that you can volunteer for. It would probably work well for the tea person to volunteer for the same period as the Daily Draw team.
Let’s have Mann Park known around the Lawn Bowling community! Watch for opportunities to sign up for visitations and join other Club bowlers representing our Club at home or away. This is a great way for Novices to see what other Clubs are like, and to get to know some of our Club bowlers as well. Novices are strongly encouraged to sign up for these events!
Ideas? I would be happy to hear from anyone who has suggestions on how we can make our Club environment more enjoyable from playing perspective or from a social perspective. Feel free to contact me with your ideas.
Good Bowling, Everyone!
Linda Palm
