January 2022

A belated Happy New Year to all our Members and Friends

A lot is going on in preparation for the new season and our membership secretary, Linda, will shortly be sending out the membership information and forms for the 2022 season.

This newsletter is intended as a bit of headline information drop. Lots more information on everything below will follow and will be available on the website.

A FEW DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES

Ladies Day Tournament - Thursday 11th August 2022

Intergeneration Fun Tournament - Sunday 17th July - open to all members plus another person from their family of a different generation. Pairs event which will be a lot of fun. BBQ to finish the afternoon.

Bowls Big Weekend - Saturday and Sunday 28th/29th May - Our big focus to attract new members supported by Bowls England. Our main activity will be on the Sunday.

Finals Weekend - Saturday and Sunday 3rd and 4th September. The finals for the 4 club knockout competitions and the one day competitions will be played over these 2 days. As in recent years there will be a BBQ on the Sunday afternoon to finish what we hope will be a great weekend.

Ashford Community Lottery

Ashford Community Lottery is a new and exciting weekly lottery that raises money for good causes in Ashford Borough. We have registered Biddenden Bowls Club. Play the lottery, support the club - it’s that simple!

Tickets for the lottery cost just £1 a week. Each ticket has a 1 in 50 chance to win a prize each week, with a top prize of £25,000! That’s a better chance of winning than the National Lottery or the Health Lottery. For every ticket that one of the club's supporters buys the club will received 50p, If just 20 sign up for a year this could raise over £500. This could provide us with a really important income stream to help cover the high maintenance and running costs of the club. Information on how to join and buy tickets will follow soon SO PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AND SUPPORT US.

League Games

All the fixture details are already up on the website but in summary:

Mens Maidstone League - we have entered one team (2 triples) which will play on Friday evenings.

Mixed Weald League - we have entered two teams (2 triples) which will play on Tuesday evenings - one in division 2 and one in division 3.

Nearer the start of the season Paul and Ralph will ask for names of those who would like to play in one or both leagues.

Friendly Games

David has been working hard to finalise our friendly fixtures including arranging some with new clubs. Shortly he will update the website with details. There are a lot of games during the week and at weekends so lots of opportunities for everyone to get involved.

Competitions

In the absence of a competitions secretary, Paul with Ralph's support, will be overseeing the competitions and the dates are already up on the website. One change will be the drawn pairs where the format will change to "Aussie Pairs". This is a great format which we trialled last season and was very popular.

Pre Season "Bowls" Sessions

Paul is putting together a number of sessions to be held at the club house in March/April to follow up the very successful ones held last year. These will cover such aspects as measuring, rules, reading heads, marking, estimating distances, positions and much more. They will of course centre around having a cup of tea/coffee and will be social/fun whilst getting us ready for the new season. {Save the dates: 9th March 2pm, 15th March 3pm, 29th March 3pm, 6th April 2pm.}

Classic Trophy at Ashford Indoor Bowls Club.

Last Sunday we played a very strong team from Lenham. Whilst we lost 6 1/2 points to 2 1/2 it really was a very creditable performance. Rink 1 with Paul, Denise and Carl (making his indoor debut!!) did particularly well. The players all tried to apply what they had learnt from watching the World Bowls at Potters on TV!!