Dear members,
We have reached the halfway point in the pennant season which makes it an opportune time to update members on what has been happening around the club.
Congratulations
Congratulations must go to Megan Newton on being the first lady bowler, since the amalgamation of the ladies and men’s club in 2009, to skip a rink in the weekend pennant top side. Her rink, with 2 other ladies in it, Heather Henderson and Julie Hanaphy, with Gavin Lally as the sole male representative, won both the games she skipped.
Maybe we should have more women in the higher teams? Food for thought.
Well done to Sammy Hammersley (below left) in finishing runner-up in the finals of the Metro West Novice competition. A great achievement.
We also had 4 members play in the Vic Open in November, namely Chris Hammer (below right), Grant Singleton, Eddie Galizi and John Slaven (below right). Phil McNally also played in the event. All acquitted themselves well with the best result coming from Chris Hammer who reached the 3 rd round of the knockout stage in the singles (last 64) and mixed pairs (last 32).
The 2023 Vic Open will be held from the 24 th March to 2 nd April in the Gippsland region and centred around Traralgon. There are around 2,000 bowlers who take part in the event, and we encourage club members to enter. From all accounts it is a wonderful experience. For more details, please speak to Chris Hammer or Grant Singleton.
Pennant
We have had a mixed bag of results in the Midweek and Weekend pennant competitions.
Selection has been very difficult due to the number of players unavailable each week. Each Saturday there have been more than 10 people unavailable. This results in continuous changes in teams, especially in the 3 rd and 4 th sides. The selectors are doing their best under the circumstances so please take this into account before complaining. If you do have a complaint, please speak to the selectors directly. The midweek selectors are also trying to give all available players, and especially new bowlers, a game so there is a bit of rotation of players.
A new competition this year has been the Friday night 6-a-side pennant. Unfortunately, there are only 4 teams in the competition, 2 of them being from Williamstown. Several new bowlers have played and gained good experience playing with seasoned skips. The semi finals of this competition are on the 9 th December and the finals the following Friday. It would be fantastic to win the inaugural event so looking for a lot of support for the finals.
The position of the teams at the halfway mark are as follows: –
Midweek Pennant No. 1 side – 2 nd
Midweek Pennant No. 2 side – 5 th
Weekend Pennant No. 1 side – 4 th
Weekend Pennant No. 2 side – 1 st
Weekend Pennant No. 3 side – 7 th
Weekend Pennant No. 4 side – 8 th
Friday Night 6-a-side No. 1 side – 1 st
Friday Night 6-a-side No. 2 side – 3 rd
Barefoot Bowls
We have had a fair number of companies and groups booking to play barefoot bowls in December and the new year. Peter Bowyer and Jeff Newton are looking after the organization but do require a few volunteers to help on occasions. They will be putting a notice on the whiteboard of the days they require assistance so please volunteer if you can.
We will also be having the barefoot bowls special every Friday at 6.15pm to 8.30pm from the 13 th January to the 3 rd March 2023. This will be bowls, a drink (stubbie, glass of wine or cooldrink) and food (most probably 2 sizzle sausages on rolls) for $20 per person. We hope to have between 50 and 60 bowlers each Friday. Again we will require about 6 volunteers each Friday night and a whiteboard will be going up soon.
We will have a Friday night Jack Attack program for 3 or 4 weeks (dependant on the number of new bowlers interested) from Friday 10 th March. We will invite all guests who have played barefoot bowls over the season to enter a team of 3 players (or a single entry if they cannot get a team) who will be skipped by a club member. There will be 2 games each evening starting at 6.30 pm and finishing at 8.30 pm. The entrance fee for non-club members will be $10 which will include a drink. No food will be provided apart from a few snacks after the game. There will be prize money each week with possibly a trophy for the winning team overall. The aim of this exercise is to provide a gateway for barefoot bowlers to progress to social Saturday/Wednesday bowls in the off-season and then pennant bowls.
Grounds and Surrounds
An update on the bottom green – Alec Inglis has been fantastic in chasing up the root barrier issue with council. Council had told us last year that we needed to get a Geotechnical report on what was causing the subsidence of the green. We finally managed to get someone out this year (at a cost of $10,000) to drill down and take core samples for analysis.
Their report stated that they had detected tree roots under the surface that drawing all the moisture from the green was causing the substructure to subside. They recommended that we put down a root barrier which would prevent this happening. After a lot of discussion with council, they have finally received a quote of $10,000 to instal the root barrier and are looking how to fund this out of their budget. Hopefully we will have a good result soon.
David Zitter, the greenkeeper, has said that it is no use re-leveling the green until the root barrier has been installed. Once this is done, the plan is to take the top 40 cms off the top of the green, level it and replant the grass. We hope to do this in December 2023. We will endeavour to get a grant to pay for this as the cost is estimated at $30,000.
The strategic plan of what we would like the clubhouse to look like in 5 years’ time is being finalised with the changes brought up at the last meeting with members. Please bear in mind that these are draft ideas that we will take to council and work with them on the desired outcome and ways to finance it. The more involvement we have with non-members by way of use of the club, through barefoot bowls and events, the more willing council will be to support us.
Sponsors
Sponsors are an important source of income for the club. You will have noticed from the new advertising signs that Peter Bowyer has managed to attract a few new sponsors. We request that you support these sponsors if you are looking for the type of work that they do.
In each of the next newsletters we will be featuring 2 sponsors so that you are aware of the type of service they provide.
You will have noticed that there are drink holders between the two greens. We are looking for businesses to advertise on these at a cost of $150 plus GST per annum. Please make an effort to approach any business owners you know and see if they will take up this offer.
Fixture Booklet
The management committee have agreed to form a sub-committee to prepare the annual fixture booklet. Andrea Shaw has agreed to manage this. We are looking for a few volunteers to help her so please see her if you would like to assist. It is a once-a-year job that will be done after the final pennant draws are published by Bowls Victoria.
Pennant and Bar Pricing
There have been several increases in liquor prices recently. We have also adjusted the wages we pay to comply with the Fair Work Registered and Licensed Clubs Award rates. Due to this we have increased the pennant green fees by $2 and have also rounded up a few of the bar prices. Jeff Fawcus advised us that weekend pennant fees were $8 when he joined the club in 2008!!
The cost to maintain the greens is around $60,000 per annum excluding major upgrades as mentioned earlier. As you can quickly work out, our membership and green fees only cover around $25,000 of this cost. The balance has to be covered through sponsorship and bar profits. As our costs increase we will have to look at our selling prices. Roy Shaw and Mats Gamby do an excellent job of running the pub and trying to keep the prices reasonable.
How can you help?
– Introduce new social and pennant bowlers to the club to increase revenue
– Have functions at the club
– Volunteer some time so that we do not need to pay for services
– Look for sponsors
We are very fortunate to have people like June and Bruce, together with their helpers, at our club as this keeps the cost down.
If you would like to help prepare this newsletter, please let Eric know. If you would like anything else included please let us know.
From the management committee.
