NOTICE:-
North Crawley Bowls Club will be holding its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 25th February commencing at 8.00pm in the Village Hall.All members should try and attend this important meeting. The Club are especially keen to extend the invitation to attend to ALL those interested in our Club, (bowlers or not). Please feel free to come along.
A potted history of the Club
From small beginnings and due in no small part to the hard work and efforts of local villagers and the Bowl Club Committees, North Crawley Village can boast a small but active outdoor bowls facility and a 6-rink green which has attracted praise from other larger visiting clubs.
A Playable Bowls Green existed on the site from the beginning of the 20th Century, but shortly after the end of the First World War, the green was converted into two tennis courts. Over time, the tennis area fell into disuse and in the early 1970’s; a new 4-rink green was established alongside a single remaining tennis court. By 1986 the other court had fallen into disuse and in August of that year the remaining ground was taken over by the Bowls Club whose intent was to amalgamate both separate green areas into one full 6-rink square playing area which could be played in either direction.
With a lot of hard work involved in clearing an area which had progressively become a wild and overgrown wasteland, the expansion commenced in September 1986. All the original wire fencing and posts once surrounding the tennis area was removed and the ground was re-dug, rolled and re-seeded. It is a credit to all those early Bowls Club members that the green was re-opened in time for the 1988 season after allowing one full year for the green to ‘rest’ It was then in much the same shape as is seen today and records at that time show a membership of 35 with a yearly subscription of £1.00
From 1988 onwards, the green playing surface has steadily improved with each year, due in no small part to the time and efforts voluntarily contributed by the Groundsman, Club Committee and Members. In 2001 the Club opened with a green surrounded by a stone retaining wall incorporating a newly installed computer controlled irrigation system and in 2002, the Club opened the season with the addition of their own mini-pavilion. All this, purely down to the time, efforts and contributions given individually and collectively by the Officers, Committee and Members of this small but dedicated Club.
The Club colours are black, white and red, reflected in the badges and bowls transfers the Club use. As the Village has had a large colony of rooks since records began, this bird has been adopted as the emblem of the Club and justifiably appears in the centre of the Club badge and on the bowls stickers.
The Club has its own seasonal competitions and trophies are awarded at the end of each season. The Club also enjoys the company of many of the larger EBA County Clubs, who visit each year for friendly inter-club matches and who also extend yearly reciprocal return invitations. The warmth and friendly hospitality the Club extends to all it visitors is renowned throughout the Bowling County and guarantees a full inter-club match fixture list throughout the season which extends from mid-April to the end of September.
The Club also has a lively fund-raising social calendar with annual quizzes, raffles, treasure hunts plus they also arrange and host the annual Village Horticultural Show which is one of the biggest and most popular events in the Village Social Calendar.
All the fund-raising undertaken by the Club throughout the year is invariably ploughed straight back into the maintenance and upkeep of the Village Bowls Green, which in turn gives the whole village community, young and old the opportunity to partake in this most social of sports.
The Club is fully affiliated to the English Bowling Association and is recognised as such by the Bucks County Bowls Association and all the other Bucks County Clubs. The Club has a fully qualified County Beginners Coach, (who also happens to be the webmaster!!) and who is available at any time to introduce the Game to any new bowlers - and also to give more experienced players help and advice to improve their game.
The Club is keen to welcome any new or potential members, irregardless of experience. Please contact our Club Secretary, Sandy Henry on 01234 391413 for further details. First-time bowlers new to the game having never even lifted a bowl before are especially welcome.
| Latest Club Newsletter |
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December, 2008. News Letter No. 8 Christmas is upon us, the New Year is about to start, and it will not be long thereafter when the 2009 outdoor bowling season begins again. But first, what has been happening since I last communicated with you. In October, Sheila Barclay, sadly, passed away, and we had her funeral in November. After the funeral, which was a very simple and touching occasion, Sheila’s two sons, and their wives, came to the ‘wake’ that they had asked us to arrange at North Crawley Institute. There they very kindly presented the club with a shield, in memory of Sheila, which we shall use as a trophy to be competed for each year in our internal competitions. We shall call this “The Sheila Barclay Shield”, and the current thinking is that we should have a ‘One Day’ competition in the form of a Mixed Triples format. What do you think ? We shall discuss this further at our AGM in February, for all members to discuss and decide. Talking of our AGM, this has been arranged for Wednesday, 25th February, again to be held, at 8pm, in The Village Hall (note NOT the Village Institute). As always, this meeting is for ALL members to attend and review the past year, to air any views and grievances they may have, and to decide how they wish the next year to be organised, as well as electing the new committee they want to do this for them. So please make a note of this important date in your diaries now, and be sure to attend. Since the end of the last outdoor season, I have been having loads of correspondence with our neighbouring bowls clubs, arranging with them our fixture list for the 2009 outdoor season. As usual, this includes all the ‘old favourites’, but I have also been trying to persuade other clubs, with whom we have not previously had fixtures, to also give us some games. In this respect I am very pleased to tell you that we shall be playing four ‘new’ clubs in 2009, and these are Woburn Sands, Winslow, Bedford Russell Park and Linslade Bowls Clubs. With all clubs trying to squeeze as many fixtures into their lists as they can, it is not always possible to have return matches, and this is the case with some of these new ones with us. To put you fully in the picture, I am attaching a copy of our full 2009 fixture list with this letter, for your perusal. As you know, we have been taking part in the MK Community Foundation’s annual car raffle, and are doing well. For every £1 ticket we sell we receive back 50p for our club funds, so it is very worthwhile. So far we should receive £110 back, and still have one more occasion to sell tickets in Central MK, as well as selling those that we were individually selling. But this will all end by the end of this month, and then we shall take part again next year, when we hope to have better dates in which to sell to the public in CMK. But many thanks for your efforts this year. Well done. Our aspirations to enlarge and improve our club house facilities continue apace. Currently we await quotations from plumbers and electricians for the work that will be required in the new premises, after which the main part of the process will face us – the generation of and the raising of funds (by grants), perhaps for as much as £50,000, necessary for the whole project. We already have some sources in mind, but we have to receive quotations in triplicate first, which then have to be presented, together with a proper ‘business plan’, to any ‘donor’, before we know if we can receive (or not) the funding required. So keep your fingers crossed, and I’ll keep you informed in due course. Well that is just about it for the moment. One final bit of news, and good news too. John Clifford is very much better and although he had been hospitalised briefly, he is back home and virtually over his bout of pneumonia and is back to doing most things again. So well done John, and keep up the good work. Finally, a Very Merry Christmas, and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to one and all. Sandy Henry. |
NORTH CRAWLEY BOWLS CLUB - FIXTURES/EVENTS 2009