With the beautiful Spring weather that we are experiencing at the moment I hope that you feel full of anticipation for a new outdoor bowling season at Oak Hill. Welcome to the first edition of our club newsletter for this year.
Opening Dates
Our green will be open for play from the 16th April and the traditional coffee morning, when you can come along and meet fellow members, is planned for 23rd April. Our first formal occasion – Captains’ Day – will be held on the afternoon of 30th April. We again have a full programme of fixtures for the coming season; fixture booklets will be available at the coffee morning.
Subscriptions
This edition of the newsletter will be sent out together with the subscription and competition entry forms for the new season. In order to keep pace with our increased costs, the annual membership subscription for full-playing members has been increased to £160 and for associate members to £80. The subscription rates for social members and junior members remain unchanged at £25.
We have incorporated an extra question on the annual subscription form, asking members to let us know of any skills or experience they may have which might prove beneficial to the running of the club. From time to time we may need to refer to people with specialist knowledge, e.g. legal / financial – or we wish to undertake work requiring certain skills, e.g. carpentry / gardening. Please let us know of areas where you may be able to help.
Competition Entry Forms
All playing members will have received an entry form for club competitions in your membership pack. We have a full range of competitions available and would encourage all full-playing members to enter some competitions. Our competition finals weekend is scheduled for the 17th and 18th September, so please make sure you will be available on those dates before making an entry.
Club Afternoon League
David Conway is again organising a league on Monday afternoons for bowlers from Oak Hill. This is an excellent way of meeting other members and testing your skills in a friendly environment. Please contact David if you would like to join in this league.
Open League
Our successful Open League will again be run this year and we are delighted to report that we have received a record entry of 17 teams. The league will be run on Tuesday mornings throughout the season, starting on 3rd May.
Coaching, Instructors
We are hoping to be able to provide an extensive programme of coaching for new bowlers and further training for existing members. We are also planning a project with pupils from East Barnet school, including an “after-school” club on Friday afternoons. We will be finalising the details of this project before the start of the season.
To assist David Bowler and John Abson, our two registered coaches, with the coaching activity of the club, we will be running some training sessions at the beginning of the season to develop a team of instructors, who can then help with training new members and also assist with the project for the pupils from East Barnet school. Please contact David or John for more details if you would like to join this team.
Our planned coaching sessions for the new season include the following –
- Up to 7th May – training a team of instructors;
- During May – coaching for new bowlers on Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. Also, some specific “player development” sessions for existing members, aimed at developing skills for prospective team members prior to the start of our various representative leagues;
- From 1st June – project with pupils from East Barnet school, probably on Fridays. The Acorn trophy will be organised on alternate Thursday evenings, with training by request on other Thursdays.
These training sessions will be supplemented by a coaching afternoon organised by the team of coaches from the Hertfordshire Bowls Coaching Society on Wednesday 18th May. In the past these sessions have provided an excellent opportunity for our members to improve their skills and knowledge and they have been very popular.
Coaching Bowls
In order to support our coaching activity we need to supplement our range of available sets of bowls. If you have sets of bowls that you no longer need, or know of any other bowlers who have sets of bowls, particularly smaller sizes, can you please let John Abson know. We also have a number of our new bowlers from last year who are looking to purchase sets of bowls.
Finchley and North London Bowls Association
This new local association has now been formed and Oak Hill is one of its member clubs. The association runs a number of competitions for individual members – ladies singles, men’s singles, ladies pairs, men’s pairs, ladies triples, men’s triples, ladies’ fours and officers singles. The closing date for entry to these competitions is 7th May. Copies of the entry forms are on the notice boards in the ladies and men’s changing rooms. If you wish to make an entry please put your details on the forms and the club will then co-ordinate all the entries and pay the total entry fees. Individuals will then be invoiced for their entries.
John Golding Memorial Trophy
Our club plays a 2-legged fixture each winter against Glebelands Indoor Bowls Club, for a trophy that our club presented in memory of John Golding, one of our past presidents, who was also president of Glebelands at the time of his death. We were delighted that Lillian Brett-Golding was able to come to the second match which was played on Sunday 20th February. After an incredibly close two matches the result depended on the last wood of the last game to finish and we are pleased to say that Oak Hill won overall by just 2 shots.
North London Open League
North London Bowls Club is hoping to organise an open league on 7 Monday evenings, from 6th June to 18th July. The league is for teams of three players. If you would be interested in entering a team please contact Ivor Seddon at North London Bowls Club.
Clubhouse
Further progress has been made in our plans to have a new clubhouse. Provisional plans have been submitted to Barnet Council for their pre-planning stage and we expect to hear back with their initial views in the next few weeks. In the meantime we are continuing to explore methods of raising funds for the project and hope to be able to provide much more information to our members within the first few weeks of the season.
Club Jackets and Shirts
We have a stock of the new club shirts and jackets, so please contact one of the members of the committee if you would like one.
We plan to send out a further bulletin to our members before the start of the season, so please let any member of the committee know of any items you would like included. The next planned meeting of the club committee is on Wednesday 13th April. The members of the committee are –
President John Abson
Deputy President Gordon Greenfield
Secretary Christine Shields
Treasurer David Conway
Ladies’ Captain Jill Jordan
Men’s Captain Derek Broomfield
Fixture Secretary David Bowler
Competitions Secretary Liam Murphy
Catering Manager Janice Ford
Bar Manager Jill Jordan
Property Manager Tom Hobden
Green Manager Terry Doe
Membership Secretaries Jackie Robinson
Ian Wilson