Newsletter – October 2020
Short Mat Bowls – Our main news is that we hope to be able to provide short mat bowling in our clubhouse during the winter months, starting in a couple of weeks’ time. We are keen to maintain the positive momentum and enthusiasm amongst those members who have been able to bowl this season, and hope that many of you will welcome this opportunity. Hopefully it is the first step in providing year-round bowling at our club.
With the help of Margaret and Mike Eccleston, who are experienced short mat bowlers, we have established that we will be able to provide a slightly limited form of the game, without making any changes to the fabric of the building. We have been successful in bidding for a second-hand carpet and stand from a hospice in Welwyn Garden City, and hope to take delivery of this carpet in the next few days. We are very grateful to Peter Speroni, who handled the Ebay bidding on our behalf, and to Gili Golan, who has agreed to collect the carpet and stand. We will need to trim the carpet slightly and then purchase some further equipment before we are ready to play.
Given the current Covid-19 guidelines and restrictions, we will probably be limiting play to 4 bowlers at any one time. The exact procedures will be drawn up in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, we would ask members to contact Peter Speroni (peter@speroni.co.uk) if they would be interested in playing. Peter has agreed to manage a booking system for the bowling, which will probably be organised into 3 daily sessions – from 10am to 11.30am, 12 noon to 1.30pm, and 2pm to 3.30pm – to ensure that members can play during daylight hours, and that those members who open up and lock the club do not have to come out in the dark.
We hope that many of our members will be able to enjoy this facility, and that it might lead to our encouraging further new bowlers to join our club.
Club Competitions – We were able to complete the finals weekend of our club competitions in very good weather, and many spectators enjoyed some very enjoyable matches. The winners of the respective competitions were –
Ladies Championship Jill Jordan
Men’s Championship Terry Doe
Ladies Handicap June Hughes
Men’s Handicap Charles Debenham
Veterans Singles Charles Debenham
Combined Singles Gordon Greenfield
Ladies 2-woods Maureen Lovell
Men’s 2-woods Terry Doe
Ladies Pairs Jackie Robinson & Jill Jordan
Men’s Pairs Ian Wilson & Stephen Quy
2-woods Pairs Brian Davidson & John Abson
Mixed Triples Janice Speroni, Pauline Dinner & Pino Cordaro.
Acorn Trophy – We held two further Saturday morning events in September, both of which were also included in the overall schedule for the Acorn Trophy. On our final Saturday, 30 members took part in a form of “progressive bowls”, with the winning lead being Jacob Greenfield (our youngest junior member), the winning number two being Simon Greenfield (Jacob’s father and Gordon’s son) and the winning skip being Margaret Eccleston.
Congratulations to the overall joint winners of the Acorn Trophy over the season – Sue Frost and Jim McGregor.
100 Club – The £100 prize for the end of September was won by Ashley Goodwin.
National & County Competitions – 2021 – Contrary to earlier information that we had received, entries for next season’s Hertfordshire county competitions must be submitted before the end of November. We have already received notification of some entries, but would ask anyone else who wishes to enter any of the county competitions to let Christine Shields or John Abson know.
Cribbage & Bridge Clubs – Unfortunately we feel it is still not safe to re-start these activities, especially given the recent surge in Covid cases and the latest Government restrictions on group meetings. We will keep this situation under review.
ASM have already started the autumn renovation work on our green. They have scarified the surface and hollow tined the whole green, a process which aims at improving the root system for the grass. In the next few days they will be applying top dressing and grass seed to the green.
Sponsors – We are pleased that Parkes Wilshire Johnson, a firm of local solicitors in East Barnet, has agreed to sponsor our club. A full list of sponsors can be seen on the club website. We would ask all our members, when the occasion arises, to support our sponsors.
And finally …. a reminder that any members wishing to play short mat bowls during the winter should contact Peter Speroni to register their interest. We will then forward the detailed arrangements when the facility is fully available. For those who decide to play short mat bowls, we hope you will enjoy your games and encourage others to take part.
In the meantime we hope you all have a healthy end to 2020 and send our best wishes for a happy New Year in 2021. We thank you for your support this year in extremely difficult circumstances and hope that we can all enjoy a more “normal” season next year.