With the beginning of the new season underway, here is a brief update of news about your club.
Members
We are delighted to welcome to Oak Hill three “new” members, all of whom are experienced bowlers – Jason Laurence, Mike Levy and Michael Marques. Many of you will remember Jason, the son of John and Gay Laurence, who has returned to the club having recovered from a bout of cancer. Mike Levy has also returned and some of you will remember him as a member of the team who qualified to play in the national finals at Worthing as runners-up in the County fours competition. Michael Marques hails from South Africa and is now getting accustomed to the pace of our green, compared with the much faster versions he is used to. Rumour has it that Michael has volunteered to help with the cooking of the barbecue at some of our club-night suppers – something to look forward to.
We hope you will make them very welcome, together with some of the new bowlers who have already turned up for coaching. We will continue to coach new bowlers on Saturday mornings from 10am to 12noon, and on Thursday evenings from 6pm to about 7.30pm throughout May, so if you know someone who would like to try the game, please encourage them to come along. We now have a team of instructors who will help with this coaching of new bowlers, and with the pupils from East Barnet school who will be coming to the club starting on the 10th June. If you would like to join this team, please contact David Bowler or John Abson.
Coaching Day
For our existing members we will be holding a coaching afternoon on Wednesday 18th May. This will be run by the coaches from the Hertfordshire Bowls Coaching Society and has been very successful in the past. If you would like to come, please put your name on the list on the Competitions notice board.
Finchley & North London Competitions
This newly amalgamated association will be running a full complement of competitions this year. The closing date for entries is 7th May, so if you wish to enter please put your name on the sheets in the changing rooms by 5th May at the latest, or let Christine Shields or John Abson know which competitions you wish to enter. The club will then submit a single entry form and invoice the individual entrants.
The closing date for letting David Conway have your entry form for club competitions is Monday 16th May.
Club-nights
Janice Ford has produced a schedule for the food to be served at club-nights for the whole season. We start on 5th May with the popular barbecue. The schedule is listed on the main notice board next to the kitchen. Again, please put your name on the list if you wish to come along to the upcoming club-nights. Janice is always keen to hear from aspiring “Masterchefs” who would like to help with preparing the food on Thursday nights.
Because of the increased cost of food, the price for a “normal” club-night meal has been raised to £6 per person. The charge for the barbecue evening is £7, and the fish and chips meals will be charged at cost. The cost of tea / coffee, including biscuits, has been increased to £1.
Bonus Ball, 100 Club
We are very grateful to Gloria Fligman who is continuing to organise these raffle competitions for the club. The Bonus Ball is a weekly draw while the winners of the 100 Club draw are announced at the end of each month. Please see Gloria if you would like to have numbers allocated in these draws.
Clubhouse
We have now received the report from Barnet Council’s Planning department about our pre-planning application for a new 2-storey clubhouse to be built on the site of the current clubhouse. Although disappointed with the response, we were not totally surprised to hear from the council that a formal proposal similar to our application would be likely to be refused. Oak Hill park is subject to the regulations about Metropolitan Open Land, which is equivalent to Green Belt, and therefore has quite severe restrictions.
We are now seeking a meeting with senior members of the Planning department to discuss the way forward and will let you know how our discussions and plans progress.
Future Newsletters
This newsletter is produced using Microsoft Word, but I am well aware that I am not totally familiar with the more detailed features of this software. If any of our members feels they could assist in giving future editions of the newsletter a more “professional” look, please let me know. In future issues we hope to include features about the cribbage and bridge groups and other areas that you might find of interest. Please let us know of any ideas.
With every best wish for a happy, healthy and successful season of bowling.
John