So that's it - the season is over. There are still some odd jobs to be done over the next few days and Ralph and Mike have work to do on the greens to get them ready for winter and make them even better next year but basically it's all done and dusted. So how was it for you?

From a personal point of view I have enjoyed my year as President (well - most of the time!). I've also enjoyed my year as Club publicist. Sometimes writing a Newspaper report on a Sunday night has been a chore when I could have been doing something else but it was always rewarding to see the results in print. Northumberland Today was particularly good at publishing material just as I had written it. It has also been fun putting together this web site which I feel has helped us all to keep in touch with what is happening. Although I'm now Past President I'll still be doing publicity and communications next year.

Thanks to those who turned up to help close the club this morning and thanks to those who came out for the closing day pot luck and jitney yesterday. It was a great way to finish off the season with lots of wonderful food and the bonus of ice cream sundaes courtesy of Palisade Gardens. Alma McKendrick won the free draw for the Palisades gift basket (see the photo page).

And then a fine Saturday afternoon jitney in the sunshine which was capped by a win for Helen Beaton's team. That earned Helen three points in my unofficial jitney league. That meant she tied Ralph with thirty points over the season. Well done to both of them. No prizes but hopefully it has been a bit of fun and added interest over the season.

Finally some news from the Fall General Meeting. The new Executive Committee is:

President                                           Ralph Stoffers
Past President                                 Bill Arthur
First Vice President                        Louisa Arthur
Second Vice President                  Gerry Childs

Directors                                            Eve Gorringe
                                                              Marilyn McMillan
                                                              Carol Dewey
                                                              George Lawrence

Treasurer                                            Donna Ball
Correspondence Secretary          Sharyl Ann Milligan
Recording Secretary                       Nan Hendren    

I should also mention that our membership secretary, Kathy Maclean, is stepping down and Gerry Childs will be replacing her. Kathy will stay on to assist Gerry in this important job. Our thanks go to Kathy for all her hard work in the past.      

You will be pleased to know that the meeting decided that fees for next year will be unchanged.
We also decided to try and get the Monday Night League going again and Donna Ball has volunteered to run that so watch out for more news on that as the 2014 season approaches.

Ben Van Steijn was in action in Midland on September 14th in a tournament that would determine the final standings for the boys Ontario junior bowler of the year (the Earl Mayer award). Going into the tournament Ben was leading the standings. Points are awarded for performance over eleven tournaments during the season and although Ben only finished sixth  at Midland his lead over the season was good enough to see him through and to claim the Earl Mayer award.

Ben finished with 72 points, 13 points ahead of Alex le Blanc who is the current Canadian under 25 champion.

Over the eleven events Ben was a model of consistency and finished in the top four in seven of the tournaments. That included three first places; one second; one third and two fourth.

At a club level Ben becomes the first junior, to my knowledge, to be rated as a skip for jitneys and in club tournaments. That rating is based not only on his bowling ability but also on his knowledge of the game, rules and etiquette.

All in all, a season of which Ben can be proud.

In the junior girls section Baylee Van Steijn finished second to Nicole le Blanc and thus relinquished the title that she won in 2012. Nonetheless she can be proud of another excellent season.

The full results can be found on the OLBA website

Monday September 9th and Ralph Stoffers, Carol Dewey, Dave and Kathleen Shirley, Louisa and I are at the club at 7.00am on a cold Monday morning – not the time we would normally bowl.  But this is no normal bowling day – this is bowling in a movie!

That was the first day of shooting on the made for TV movie ‘Rocky Road’ –a story about a young executive who loses his high flying job in the city and returns to his small town home to help his father run an ailing ice cream business. So what’s the connection with lawn bowling?

The script calls for the male lead, played by Mark Salling from the show Glee, to be challenged to a game of lawn bowls ( I have no idea why). So we were supposed to be bowling in the background as the actors played out their scenes. But, to our surprise, we were required for walk on parts and to actually appear on camera as well as provide background bowling scenes. I have to say that we were awesome! If our scenes ever make it past the cutting room floor you will see what I mean. If we are left on the cutting room floor you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Lots of the bowling scenes were fake in that we could not bowl the length of the green. Because of cameras and other equipment we could only roll our bowls about 20 feet, so our bowling action looked more like it was short mat bowling rather than regular lawn bowling.

We had fun and it was interesting to see how things are done on a movie set but there was an awful lot of waiting around and I could not believe how many times we had to repeat a scene. The Assistant Director kept coming to us and saying “that was great lawn bowlers but we’re just going to have to do it again”. A pity the professional actors couldn’t get it right!

The location for the movie is supposed to be Vermont so anything that showed Cobourg or anything Canadian had to be moved. That’s why the US flag was flying and the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club sign was turned back to front.

On Wednesday September 18th the crew was back at the club to film an internal scene where some of the actors were playing cards in the club house. We were not involved in that but I was there throughout to keep an eye on things.

The windfall for the club was the fees we were paid for the use of the club. In addition to the fees for the two days of filming we also picked up fees for use of the washrooms on three days when scenes were being shot in Church Street and in Victoria Park.

I managed to get some photos and there is a slide show below.

Ralph Stoffers and I were at Woodstock last weekend playing with Stan Zuly of Port Hope in the Ontario Novices Championships. This was Ralph's last year as a novice and we had high hopes of success to end his novice period, especially as we had done well at the Seniors Championships - but it was not to be.
On the first day  it was  round robin play with four groups of four and the top two in each group would advance to the second day which would be knockout.  We got off to a great start in the first game and bowled really well. The only problem in this game was heavy rain to the extent that we had to clear the greens and there was a significant delay. Even after the restart the rain continued to fall and there was a further delay before we closed off the game with a six to finish off the opposition 16-5.

In or second game we played district 1 who had lost their first game 5-16. We opened with a winning end but did not play well and in the last end we were one down but Ralph made an excellent draw to tie the game. He also came close to winning it for us with his final shot in the extra end but was just a couple of inches away so we lost and were 1 and 1 and would have to play District 16 in our final game and they had already won two games.

We started badly and were soon down 1-9. That meant we were keeping a close eye on the other game in the group because depending upon results there we might get into a play off even if we lost. The results did fall our way as that game closed out early and we knew that even if we lost that meant we would get into a play off for second place. However we also knew that if we managed to win our game we would definitely  be into the last eight.

Gradually we clawed our way back. And with a two in the 13th end we took a one point lead. In the final end the opposition skip played an excellent runner to take out our shot and they were sitting four. With his last shot Ralph promoted one of our bowls to sit shot and the opposition skip just missed his final shot so we closed out the game 12-10 and in fact that win meant we finished top of our group going into the quarter finals.

We did not play a good game in the quarter final match. We started slowly but from 3-4 down we scored a five to go 8-4 up. At that stage we should have put the pressure on and killed the game but poor play allowed them back into the game and they moved to a lead of 11-8. We fought back and going into the 14th and last end it was all tied up at 12-12. The opposition managed to get shot bowl but despite Ralph's best efforts he could not move their bowl or promote ours. It was a measure by the umpires to decide shot but we lost it. A very disappointing finish, more so because we did not play to our full potential.

Sorry for the delay in reporting on the MacCoubrey sponsored ladies pairs on Thursday September 5th but its been a busy few days and I’m now starting to catch up.  We had twelve teams from Peterborough, Belleville, Madoc, Oshawa and from our own club. Unlike the 2-4-2 tournament which came to a premature close because of bad weather on the previous Monday, there were no such problems as the sun shone throughout the tournament in which each team played three twelve end games.

After the first round of games we had only one Cobourg winner -  the team of Dianne Lauder and Marilyn McMillan with 13 points and they built on that situation by winning their second round  game to lie third behind Sharron and Donna Morrison of Oshawa and Elaine Welch and Jan Young of Peterborough. The Oshawa versus Peterborough game was the top game in the final round and it was won by the Oshawa team which finished with 3 wins and 47 points.

A win for Dianne and Marilyn would have given them a chance to win the trophy by overtaking the Oshawa team on total points but it was not to be as they lost to Kathleen Shirley and Norma Stoffers. That ensured that the Morrisons from Oshawa would win the trophy and that result also took Dianne and Marilyn out of the prize money. However  this was Kathleen and Norma’s second win and their high points total of 47 was enough to secure second place.

The full results are on the results page and there are a couple of new photos on the photo page including one of the in club Rona tournament winners. We did not get a photo of them on the day but they were all together at the club during the MacCoubrey tournament so we rectified that.

Congratulations to Reg and Donna Longman who claimed the trophy at today's tournament.

Our luck finally ran out with the weather today. Despite the forecast it looked as though we would get a full three games played but just as the third games were getting underway a thunderstorm and heavy rain interrupted play. Although the rain stopped after about 30 minutes there was too much water on some greens for play to resume immediately and with all 12 greens in use it would take too long for all greens to drain and allow play. So we decided that the results would be based on the two games played.

Twenty four teams competed and that is the maximum number of entries that we can take which was excellent.

After two games there were six teams with a perfect record of two wins and Reg and Donna had 33 points which was enough to claim the trophy. This meant that for the second open tournament in succession a Cobourg team won the trophy.

Second was the Madoc team of Larry and Elva Wilson (31 points). In third place were Dave and Kathleen Shirley  (30 points); Fourth were Susan Logeman and Fred Thompson from Oshawa (28 points). In fifth place was another Oshawa team – Nicky Chamois and Steve Naylor (also 28 points) and the sixth place went to Marilyn McMillan and Ben Van Steijn  (23 points).

Overall a good result for the Cobourg club with three teams in the top six.


There are more photos on the photos page