JBC Informal meeting

NOTICE is given of an informal meeting of members of the Joondalup Bowling Club to be held at 6 Miami Beach Promenade, Iluka, on Saturday 9 October 2021 at 11.00 a.m.

The business of the meeting is to enable members to vote by ballot to advise the Management Committee on the question:

1. Should the Club proceed with the installation of a synthetic green?

DATED 10 SEPTEMBER 2021

Patricia Cooper

SECRETARY  

Most of us will be champing at the bit to get back to the feel of the sun, the camaraderie of Pennants and the satisfaction of a well delivered bowl. 

It is difficult to recall a worse winter season, cold, rain, more rain and Covid to top it off. The positive to come out of this is the increased anticipation it brings out for the coming season.

Preparations are well underway. The Flyer for Opening Day has been sent out and it will be a momentous day in the history of our Club on which we will celebrate our 25th Anniversary and our Award of Metropolitan Club of the Year 2020-2021. We will mark the occasion with an early Lunch provided by the Club and our Patron Mark Folkard MLA will attend and formally open the Season by delivering the trigger bowl for the traditional Spider. Bowlers will be spread along all 4 sides of the green and will deliver a single bowl hoping to be knocked closest to the jack and win a bottle of wine or bubbly. Make sure you come. It will be a long time before as significant a milestone is reached again.

JBC was honoured by the City of Joondalup on 20 August when Dave Webber, Barbara Lord, Carol Curtis and myself represented the Club in attending a Council Dinner and Meeting of Council at the invitation of the Mayor Albert Jacobs in recognition of the Metropolitan Club of the Year Award. It was very much appreciated.

We were also advised that Bowls WA would be putting in a submission to Bowls Australia nominating JBC as Australian Bowling Club of the Year and that has now occurred .The nomination in itself is some accolade and gets the name of the JBC right out there. To quote from the submission “Joondalup is a club on the rise”. There can be little doubt that the Club’s achievements have lifted its profile to a height never achieved before. And all this in our 25th year which somehow makes it just a little more special. 

One of those achievements has been the development and promotion of our under 18 bowlers. As a part of that Mark Roemerman arranged a special event on Saturday 31 August when Mark Folkard MLA presented our under 18 players with their bags and the new bowls acquired by the Club were on display. The Committee was represented by Carol Curtis and Barbara Long. It was an enjoyable occasion and it was particularly fitting for Mark Folkard to make the presentation as he is a generous donor towards our under 18 program and purchase of bowls. Well done Mark Roemerman for all that you have done and are doing for our under18s. 

The Off Season has been a busy one for the Management Committee with a number of projects coming up for consideration or action. The most obvious of these has been the new paving from the entry through to the common intersection of the Greens. This job was a necessity because the corrugations in the grass pathways had become a trip hazard. The completed job looks really good.

This work was driven By Chris Leggett as Chair of the Greens Committee who liaised with the City of Joondalup, arranged purchases of materials and planned the works. He was ably assisted by Brett Driscoll who arranged quotations, booked Bobcat services and organized all work including the dig out of the grass and cementing under the seats. The time and effort Brett put in was enormous.

But the job could not have been completed without help from a large body of volunteers who carried out some onerous and time consuming work. Special mention should be made of Shane Nelligan, Nigel Poulton and Chris Beaney who were involved in virtually the whole job from beginning to end, from digging out the grass, which took a whole day, cementing in seats, and lowering the level of the remaining grass to align with the installed paving. Shane and Nigel also assisted the contractor to move all the pavers. Others who assisted with one or more of these tasks were Allan Covell, Terry Furler, Andrew Groves, Dave Mulloch, Roy Moss, Harry Pickford, Wayne Skipper, Clive (CJ) Smith, Harry Teeuwissen  and Clive Tipper. Dot Leslie kept the army working by supplying tea.

A big thank you to each and every one of you. Your effort exemplifies why the Club is what it is today.

Other matters coming to a head are finalization of, the review of our management structures, a player recruitment and retention policy, the extension of the verandah proposal, consideration of a proposal for installation of a synthetic green and the bowls calendar for the coming year. 

All of this comes amidst a number of personnel changes which does nothing to lessen the pressure! Two areas affected are Barefoot Bowls and our Community Bowls Program. 

Barefoot Bowls was previously very well run by Keith Willett but he is no longer able to continue. Richard (Kiwi) Wyatt has run Community Bowls for the last 6 years and feels, quite understandably, that it is time to hand over the baton to someone else, although he and his wife Lisa are happy to help out this year to ensure a successful transition.

Thanks to Keith, Richard and Lisa for all they have done.

We desperately need two volunteers (or possibly more on a shared basis) to take over these roles. Both areas are an important part of our involvement in the Community and an excellent way to promote bowls and attract future members while also being good revenue streams for both the JBC and the JSA – with flow back benefits to us. If you have assisted in either area in the past or have participated in barefoot bowling you would have the ideal experience. But even if not you could easily be shown the ropes. Willingness is the only essential prerequisite. 

It will all come together and I have no doubt another very successful season lies ahead.

Dust off those bowls and get down to Opening Day on 4 September.

Best Wishes

Clive Raymond  

5 August 2021