Bowls Taranaki working together with our Clubs.
It’s been a very busy period and now there is a chance to reflect. We hope you have all enjoyed the conclusion of a number of tournaments. Congratulations to the winners, but more importantly we hope that everyone has enjoyed their time on the green.
For Midweek and Saturday Interclub players, we have seen the conclusion of the Egmont Shield, won by Fitzroy over Tower. We thank Patty Symes for her efforts and Lepperton Bowling Club for hosting a great final. Avery and Gilmour Competitions have been concluded with Oakura winning both, what a fantastic result for them! In the Southern Division, Tower won the Snowdon Competition, and in the MiLife Men’s Shield we have found our 3 finalists, Tower, Rahotu and Inglewood. Good luck to them, they will play their final at Pihama. Congratulation also goes to Okato for winning the Darth’s Funeral Service Junior Bowls3five and to West End for winning the Darth’s Champ of Champ Bowls3five.
After rain ruined many well made plans before Christmas, we have now finished the Summerset, Vospers and Dean File Collier’s Real Estate sponsored Interclub competitions. West End won the Men’s and good luck to them in Wellington. While Paritutu won the Men’s Division 2 closely over Manaia and picked up both Women’s Interclub and Junior Interclub. Bowls Taranaki is contributing to help our club teams to travel to Wellington to represent the province. Good luck!
Of course, a lot of time and energy goes into hosting the Taranaki Open Fours every year, and this year was no exception with 182 Men’s Teams and 82 Women’s Teams entering. We had many compliments about our clubs, the catering, the greens and hospitality. It is a lot of hard work hosting 4 or 5 days, and some clubs hosted for 2 weeks, but we expect the tournament will have been of good benefit to the host clubs. We understand prices have increased all around, and have completed a review of the tournament. We are looking into connecting with Venture Taranaki to further enhance our Tournament and continue to look for a major sponsor for this event.
Clubs have now reported their membership for the current year, and it is pleasing to see an increase in members across the board. 12 of our clubs recorded a positive number of members with the top club being Waitara. Membership is challenging in modern times and it is heartening to see some clubs take a creative approach to getting people through the door, spending their money, using the facilities and playing bowls.
Our Umpire’s continue to report good numbers, with a number of new players seeking to become umpires. They are having an introduction evening coming up at Fitzroy Bowling Club. If you are interested in becoming an umpire, get in touch with the Association. While we also assisted with giving new players a better understanding of the rules with a handy rulebook at our First Year Singles tournament.
Existing coaches will have an opportunity to improve their skills at a Bowls New Zealand held workshop coming soon. Pencil in the 22nd and 23rd of July at the Paritutu Indoor Stadium. The Coaches Association will have their AGM at Stratford-Avon on the 20th May at 10am.
We’ve had many compliments about the qualities of greens from visiting players, and when our players travel away from Taranaki and come back, they always comment on how we should be proud of the good number of quality greens we do have. Thanks to all the greenkeepers and volunteers who continue to produce high quality greens. The Greenkeepers Association is working on setting up another field day with the NZ Sports Turf Institute, and we thank Maurice Symes and Fitzroy Bowling club for their efforts to support Bowls New Zealand and Bowls Gisborne – East Coast clubs to re-build after the devastating cyclone.
Bowls Taranaki hosted 3 of the 4 Representative Tournaments this year, the Men’s and Women’s Octagonal and the Junior Men’s Hexagonal and it went off with a bang. A lot of players from around the lower North Island were impressed with the quality of our greens and clubs. We hope to see them return again, either for our Open, your club tournaments or in future Representative fixtures. After Whanganui and Kapiti were unable to host, we put our hand up to help host the Junior Hexagonal. We thank Hawera Park for doing a great job and look forward to hosting Rep fixtures again when it is our turn.
Our representative teams performed well, with only Wellington standing out above the crowd. Our teams comprised of players from the following clubs: Paritutu, West End, Waitara, New Plymouth, Fitzroy, Inglewood, Stratford-Avon, Okato, Rahotu, Opunake, Hawera Park and Manaia. A truly representative selection of players. We would like to thank all of our Managers and Selectors, who have done a great job looking after our teams this season, John Garrud, Graham Rieve, Cindy Nichol, John Sexton, Don Christensen, Cathy Andrews, Allan Batley and Marty Jordan.
Under 18 Bowls continues to grow, with a number of young players attending sessions at New Plymouth Bowling Club during Term 4. We are looking at working more closely with Sports Taranaki and Taranaki Secondary Schools Sports to improve access to bowls for younger people. With that in mind we have entered into a new initiative with Bowls Wellington to compete in a National Under 26 competition during the Winter season.
Parafed Taranaki and Bowls Taranaki organised a session of Adaptive Bowls for disabled people which was very well received and we look forward to hosting them again with Adaptive bowls for kids with disabilities. This will be held on the 3rd of April, at the Indoor Stadium at Paritutu.
We would like to thank Pelorus Trust, NZCT, Aotearoa Gaming Trust, Revital Fertilisers, Abraham’s Funeral Home, Jean Sandel Retirement Village, Anderson’s Pies, Dean File – Colliers Real Estate, Darth’s Funeral Services, Tom and Amanda Crehan and the Toi Foundation for their recent sponsorship and support. We look forward to a successful conclusion of the season and hope the weather stays fine for all bowlers!
Ian Lewis – Bowls Taranaki
