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Opening Day

5/14/2023

The sun shone, the lake sparkled, the greens were manicured, the tables heaved with food, the veranda was packed with members - it was the opening day of the 2023 season.

Thank you to all those who contributed to a wonderful first day. It was the best for quite a long time and great to renew old acquaintances and welcome some new members.

Town of Cobourg Councillors Adam Bureau and Aaron Burchat were the guests of honour and after a few instructions from President Carol Dewey and Vice President Peter Stuart-Sheppard rolled in the new season with some good bowls.

Just over 60 members played in a ten end jitney and the first winners of the season were Ben van Steijn, Jacob Hyatt and Laura Mounce.

It takes a little while to get back in the swing and there were some frustrations shown but also a lot of good bowling and laughter.

There is a short three minute video on YouTube with highlights. Click the picture below to watch the video
Bill Arthur
May14th 2023

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Spring General Meeting

5/4/2023

The Spring meeting was held at Trinity Church on Wednesday evening, May 3rd. There was a very good attendance and before the meeting members were able to renew their membership for the upcoming season and pay their locker fees. The draft minutes will be sent to members in due course but in the meantime here are a few highlights.

The two Executive Committee vacancies have been filled by Laura Mounce and Alan Bell. Laura is Director of Communications and Marketing and Alan is the new Greens Director. Other changes since last season include Mona Attard becoming the administrator of the club email account and Michelle Tinney is now responsible for sponsorship and advertising.

It was also announced that Nan Hendren is the new Vice President of OLBA.

There were a number of forms for members to complete to indicate that they wish to volunteer to help with club activities and it was great to see many of these being completed. There are opportunities to help with greens keeping and the club surrounds, kitchen help, tournaments etc. If you weren't at the meeting there will still be opportunities in the coming weeks to sign up for various activities.

One of the changes for the coming season is that the Monday Night League, which was previously different fun games, will become a competitive triples league. Alan Bell is organising this and members can enter as a team or individuals can sign up and be put on a team.
Below is a slideshow from the meeting.

Bill Arthur

Happy New Year

12/31/2022

I thought I would do a quick new year news item, primarily to bring people up to date on the tree that fell on the greens during the Christmas storm. There is a slideshow below taken on Christmas Day Which shows what happened.

Specialist contractors were brought in by the Town of Cobourg to remove the tree on December 29th. Here is a report from Terry Dyche.

"The bulk of the tree has been removed but there are still large branches and a very large amount of smaller pieces scattered all over the green. The root base and the base of the trunk still remain but they are in the park area so we are not concerned. Overall I did not see any major damage to the green apart from a couple of places where tree branches have punched holes in the green and several places where you can see a shallow trough where the large branches came to rest.

The fence is badly damaged where the tree and its branches fell on it and will need repair/replacement. I have meanwhile put caution tape along the damaged fence line.

The ditch boards look as if they might have survived but this needs to be confirmed once the rest of the branches etc are removed and the snow and ice covering them melted. The only damage I can see currently is the back board has been pushed forward toward the green about two inches over a length of about fifteen feet.

The main part of the tree took out the sprinkler head and totally smashed it."

The EC will discuss how to follow up on the damage to the fence etc at their next meeting.

The photos in the slideshow below were taken on New Year's Eve.

Club YouTube channel

I have updated the club YouTube channel to include a playlist of videos which I produced during lock down and posted to my own channel at the time. These cover the years from 2013. If you are interested check them out at
https://www.youtube.com/@cobourglawnbowlingnews1402
On the subject of videos, our channel proved quite popular this year. Here are the top videos and views:

Ontario mixed pairs 1,076 views
CLBC Promotional video 682 views
2022 Season Review 266 views

The CSMBA short mat championships video has had 339 views.

2023 Open Tournaments

I have included the Cobourg 2023 open tournament schedule on here. Also a downl0adable file of all District 14 open tournaments. Click the appropriatee button.

2023 Cobourg open tournaments

2023 D14 Open Tournaments

And Finally - if you want to watch some first class indoor bowling, the world championships start on January 6th. You can watch all the games live or recorded on at
https://www.youtube.com/@WorldBowlsTour

That's it from me. Happy New Year and enjoy the rest of the winter.

Bill Arthur

Weekend Wrap July 9 & 10

7/11/2022

At club level we hosted the Lindsay club for a friendly tournament on Sunday July 10th. A report will follow but to whet your appetite here are a few photos courtesy of Michelle.

Bill Arthur was competing in the Ontario open singles championship at the Heritage Greens club in Kitchener. 40 men started the championships on Saturday July 9th and Bill won his group with 2 wins out of three. After a loss in the first game he won his next two and won the group because of his win against the other player with two wins.

The last 16 was tough and Bill lost 21-12 to David Anderson who ultimately won the gold medal. The format was double knockout and Bill ran out of steam losing 21-8 to David Jefferies who, at the time of writing is still completing for silver.

The sun was out....

5/15/2022

The sun was out
The sky was blue
There wasn't a cloud to spoil the view
And we were bowling
Bowling in the park!
(with apologies to Buddy Holly)

Well, what a beautiful day to start our 115th season of bowling in Victoria Park.

After a lunch event to catch up with old friends, President Carol Dewey introduced invited guests Mayor John Henderson and Councilor Emily Chorley who both spoke about how valued the club is and about the spirit of camaraderie in the club.

After the short speeches Emily and John each rolled a bowl to get the season underway. Emily laid down the challenge with a bowl about 3 feet from the jack but John nearly matched it, being just a few inches further away.

The serious business then started with 36 bowlers enjoying the first traditional jitney since September 2019. It was a fun afternoon and we were back to giving out prize money! On this occasion there were three cash prizes. The winners received the princely sum of $3 each; the second place team $2 each; and the third place team got their entry fee back with $1 each. Some people didn't stay to collect their prize money so it went back to the club.

First: Baylee van Steijn, Mary Salter and Louisa Arthur 2 wins 24+1 points
Second: Dave Shirley, Fran Marsh and Dave Thickson 2 wins 18 points
Third: Ben van Steijn, Bonnie Sheridan (sub for second game Helen Beaton) and Christine Thickson. 2 wins 16 points.

Finally I would just like to acknowledge the great work from Mike Hendren and Carl Ferguson in having the greens in such great condition for the opening day. I think this is the best I have ever seen them at this time of year. Well done guys.

Photos

Bill Arthur
May 15th 2022

Two Months to Opening Day

3/11/2022

As I write this it is snowing again and it seems like winter will never end but it won't be long before we are bowling again (fingers crossed).

After 2 years of Covid the club is planning for a normal season and (drum roll please)

WE WILL OPEN ON MAY 14TH

It has been a busy winter preparing for the 2022 season and you may have read in the local media that we received a Seniors Community Grant from the Ontario Trillium Fund.

We have recently released a promotional video with some introductory information about lawn bowling and our club. We hope this will prove useful to prospective members. There is a link to the video on the Home Page.

If you are interested in lawn bowling you don't have to wait until we open to find out more. We have already had a number of inquiries and are registering interested people ready to contact them and arrange free lessons as soon as we are able, after May 14th.

email us at cobourg.lbc@gmail.com or phone 289-829-0182

Bill Arthur
Director
March 11th 2022

October Newsletter

10/1/2021

Check out the October Newsletter to read all about September's events at the club. Includes information about the club singles tournament, a visit to the Peterborough club, our collaboration with Community Living, a civic award for Nan Hendren and much more. Click the link below to download.

october_newsletter.pdf
File Size:	4866 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

September Newsletter

9/1/2021

The September Newsletter can be downloaded using the link at the foot of this post.

Highlights include a win for Martin Foxhall at the OBA singles. A win for Baylee van Steijn at the "Back to Bowls" U25 tournament plus Baylee and Peter Stuart-Sheppard placed second in a mixed pairs at Cosburn Park. Another Cobourg winner was the team of Bob Bates, Carl Ferguson and Bill Arthur at the Cosburn Park Fall Classic.

Plus lots of other club news - download and enjoy.

september_newsletter.pdf
File Size:	6157 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

July News

8/1/2021

Glory be! We held a tournament - the first in almost 2 years.
On July 31st we celebrated the club's 114th anniversary with a tournament. 10 triples teams competed and we played 2 ten end games. With substitutions between games 1 and 2 33 members competed and it was great to celebrate like we did.
Winners
With 2 wins and 33 points the team of Peter Stuart-Sheppard, Eve Gorringe and Gail Cunningham. Special congratulations to Gail who has only been bowling for a few weeks. Second
With 2 wins and 28 points the team of Carol Dewey, Tom Bevan and Irene Flood. Dale McMillan substituted for Irene in game 2
Third
With One win and one loss the team of Ken Bevan, Mary Salter and Brian Rogers
Check out the photos page for pictures
The August Newsletter is out. Click below to download

august_newsletter.pdf
File Size:	7594 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

Slowly, Slowly.......

7/11/2021

Slowly, slowly things start to get better.

Canada Day was significant for us it was the start of Step 2 of the Ontario re-opening plan and it meant that we moved to Phase 3 of the Bowls Canada return to play protocols. For the first time this season we played triples. It was not the usual 3 game Canada Day tournament but it began to feel like normal. Ironically there has been quite a lot of rain this month which has meant some jitney cancellations but yesterday (Saturday July 10th) was one of those afternoons where the sun shone; we had 24 members out bowling; people were hanging over the fence watching and enquiring about bowling. Pure joy!

With the news that Ontario moves to Step 3 on Friday July 16th maybe the end of this nightmare is in sight.

You can read the July Newsletter by downloading the link below.

july_newsletter.pdf
File Size:	3191 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Opening Day

Spring General Meeting

Happy New Year

Weekend Wrap July 9 & 10

The sun was out....

Two Months to Opening Day

October Newsletter

September Newsletter

July News

Slowly, Slowly.......

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