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Visit by Rotary Club of Cobourg

9/21/2023

In 2018 we received a substantial donation from the Rotary Club.of.Cobourg to help us build a new equipment garage. For a number of reasons (primarily COVID) it had not been possible to arrange a "thank you" event, until recently. On, Sunday September 17th. A number of Rotarians visited us to see what we did with their donation, to find out more about our club and about lawn bowling. We had a fun afternoon with them, teaching them how to bowl and finishing with refreshments in our historic clubhouse. Thank you again Rotary for your contribution to our club.

Thanks also to those volunteers who helped with the kitchen, setting up, coaching and games.

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From Lindsay to Woodstock (and points in between)

7/16/2023

What a week that was with bowling events all over the place. Here we go!
Ontario Singles
Peter Stuart-Sheppard and I were at Cosburn Park on Saturday July 8th for the Ontario singles championships.

Once again the format was double knockout and you probably know by now that this means you are eliminated after two losses. Thirty Two players competed.In singles the winner is the first to 21 points and there was a 2hour 15 minute time limit. In his first game Peter was tied 18-18 when the time limit expired so had to play an extra end to determine the winner. Unfortunately Peter lost.

In my first game I was drawn against Jeff Harding who was a gold medallist in pairs. I got off to a bad start and was 7-0 after three ends. After that it was close but I lost 11-21.

So on to round two – a must win match. Peter lost 16-21 although it was a tight game most of the way and I lost 11-21 mainly due to a run of three bad ends in the middle of the game. Disappointing for us both but the level of competition was extremely high and singles is always a great experience.

Cobourg at Lindsay – Sun July 9th (report by Bob Bates)

On Sun July 9 a contingent of 24 enthusiastic Cobourg bowlers made their way to Lindsay for a fun day of friendly competitive bowling. The weather co-operated with the cloud cover keeping a hot sun off our backs.

The Lindsay organizer Keith Olan was quite impressed even before the games started as half of the people helping set up the green were from Cobourg. Home & Away skips drew their rinks at random & the games began. The clubs were evenly matched as both Cobourg & Lindsay teams were made up of more than 50% Novices.

It took a couple of ends for our bowlers to get used to the longer Lindsay greens. In the end there were several hotly contested low scoring games in the morning. No team scored more than 14 points. When the dust settled & lunch time came both clubs had won 4 games & lost 4 games.

After lunch the 8 winners of game one were matched against each other as were the 2nd place teams (i.e.Losers). Once again no team managed to get more than 14 points in the 10 end games. Cobourg teams managed to win 5 of the 8 afternoon games besting Lindsay's 2 wins. One game ended in a tie.
All the teams played well. 3 Cobourg teams won both of their games which in the end secured our bragging rights over Lindsay (until next time). The 2 game winners were:

Ann Tough, Kathleen Shirley, Brent Bayley
Sarah van Steijn, Lynn Bryans, Michelle Tinney
Mary Salter, Brian Rogers, Emerson MacRa

The Share the Wealth draw was split with 2 winners from both clubs. Thanks from Lindsay for Cobourg bowlers support in purchasing an abundance of draw tickets.
The next Friendly match is in Wilmot Creek on Thurs Aug 17 at 10am . . . followed on Sun Aug 27 with a return match with Lindsay at Cobourg (looking to even things up). See the Bulletin Board to sign up.

Monday Night League

The team of Carl Ferguson, Nan Hendren and Mike Hendren is still unbeaten having played 4 games and top the standings with 8 points. Bob Bates, Ernie Sapinski and Mona Attard are in second place with 6 points but they have played one game more. In third place are "The Titans" (Peter Stuart-Sheppard, Mike Place and Bill Arthur) with 5 points from 5 games. There are four more rounds to go before the playoffs. Who can stop the Ferguson/Hendren team?

Milligan open triples

Sixteen teams competed including teams from Cosburn Park, Lindsay, Pickering, Agincourt and 8 teams from Cobourg. Club member Martin Foxhall was part of a team entered by Lan Tran and Ricky Lau from Agincourt. Lan and Ricky are very experienced players so with Martin (Ontario Gold Fours) and Lan (Ontario Silver Pairs) they formed a formidable team and won the tournament with 3 wins and 43 points, one point ahead of the Lindsay team of Rhys Warren, Alan Hunter and Tracey Warren. The best performing Cobourg teams were those skipped by Carl Ferguson (2 wins and 40 points) and Terry Bradshaw (2 wins and 33 points). Thanks to Sharyl Ann and Dan Milligan who sponsored this tournament in memory of their parents Ron and Trudy. And thank you to Sharyl Ann for presenting the prizes. You can check out the full result by clicking here and the photos by clicking here

Away Days

Bob Bates, Pat Bylok Louisa and I were at Campbellford on Friday 14th for a Pairs tournament. Just to prove that we don't just report on successes I can tell you that none of us won any prizes and we didn't have the best of days (in a bowling sense) although it's always a good day visiting Campbellford. I don't know what they have against Cobourg as Louisa and I were on rink 8 in the first game and Bob and Pat were on rink 1. If you've been to Campbellford you'll know what that means! Bob and I had a better day at Pickering on Saturday July 15th with two wins but two points short of prize money.

Anniversary In-Club Tournament – July 25/2023 (report by Donna Ball)
Thirty bowlers participated in the club’s 116th Anniversary Tournament. Due to the threat of rain, the format was changed from 3 --10 ends to 3 – 8 ends. As it turned out this was a good decision. Light rain started as a few teams still playing their third game, were on skips bowls for the final end. Good timing indeed!

During the second break Carol Dewey, our Club President, cut the cake we always have to mark another year of “Friendship by the Lake”. Competition this year was close, with many low scoring games. The only team with three wins, and therefore the trophy winners, was the threesome of Terry Bradshaw, Nan Hendren and Dot MacRae (with Mary Thibault playing the first game for Dot).

In second place was the team of Dave Carlton, Brian Rogers and John Clews. In third place was Dave Shirley, Jenn Wetherall and Eve Gorringe (with Lynn Bryans playing the first game for Jenn Wetherall). The High One Game winner was Dianne Hawryszok, Laura Mounce & Nancy Kirby (with Lynn Bryans playing the second game for Laura). Thanks again to all members who support the club by playing in these events; buying “Share the Wealth” tickets and working in the Kitchen, the Office and on the Greens.

Ontario Youths (a report from Sarah van Steijn)

Well! Well! Well! It was a wonderful weekend at the Woodstock Lawn Bowling Club. The kids bowled in the rain and the sun and some more rain!

Baylee is our U25 Gold winner! Emmalee is our U25 Bronze winner, Ben is our U25 Silver winner! And last but not least Jacob is our U18 Bronze!

Thank you to Woodstock Club for an amazing weekend!

Enjoy your week ahead and good bowling

Bill Arthur
July 16th 2023

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling.....

6/26/2023

After a quiet week it was all action again this last week with so much happening.

I'll kick off with news of two tournament wins for Peter Stuart-Sheppard. He was at Lindsay on Monday June 19th playing with Ron and Cathy Larking (Cosburn Park). They were the tournament winners with 3 wins. Peter followed up on Tuesday June 20th with another tournament win, at the Open Triples "Home Hardware" tournament in Bobcaygeon. Peter captured this trophy playing with Rhys and Tracy Warren (Lindsay LBC).

The Monday Night League got underway on June 19th. There were no games the previous week because of rain. I will bring you updates on the standings as the league progresses except to say that my team didn't live up to their name of the Titans!

Wednesday June 21st was a demanding day for the club coaches. It kicked off with a visit of twenty four 8 to 10 year old pupils from C R Gummow school. After some basic instruction they were split into triples teams and played a short game. The children were enthusiastic and enjoyed the session very much. The coaches were exhausted but then held free lessons for new bowlers on Wednesday afternoon and evening. It was all worthwhile though as we are now up to 118 adult members.

Thursday June 22nd was almost as busy. A Probus club came for lunch and some bowling. And......(drum roll please) our new Toro Greensmaster mower was delivered. This was purchased through a grant from the New Horizons program.

And so to the weekend with the club hosting the Gordon Insurance Men's Pairs. Here is a report from Bob Bates:

“On Saturday June 24 we hosted the Gordon Insurance Men’s Pairs tournament. The event was well attended with 18 teams coming from Belleville, Cosburn Park, Lindsay, Oshawa, Pickering, Whitby, Campbellford and 7 teams from Cobourg.

On Friday night the weather forecast was not good. Rain was almost certain to come on Saturday morning and continue on and off throughout the day. A couple of teams called hoping that the event would be cancelled but we rarely cancel a tournament until the morning of the event as the weather is so unpredictable. As happened, anyone coming from west of Cobourg drove through heavy rain storms to arrive and find our club as dry as a bone.

Anticipating wet weather we cut the games down to 3 bowl pairs to try to get all the games in. It worked out well as we finished around 2:45 with the rain coming about 45 minutes later.
The weather turned out to be almost perfect for bowling. 4 teams won their first 2 games and faced each other in the 3rd for all the marbles. In the third game Ben van Steijn and Al Purcell tied 10-10 before Ben and Dan Milligan took the extra end to win the tournament. Martin Foxhall took an 8-1 lead in his game over Bob Bates and Ernie Sapinski then had to survive a strong comeback surge to hold on for a close 11-10 victory and take 2nd place." Click here for the full results.

Sharyl Ann Milligan

Between the 2nd and 3rd games of the Gordon Insurance tournament Sharyl Ann Milligan was presented with a plaque from the OLBA in recognition of her induction into the Ontario Lawn Bowls Hall of Fame (Builder’s Division).

Her brother Dan and Ben van Steijn paid tribute to Sharyl Ann highlighting the many successful achievements she had during her career. These including bowling championships won, leadership particularly in Youth programs, umpiring and many other achievements in over 50 years of involvement with lawn bowling. Congratulations Sharyl Ann.

Photos from that event are on the photo gallery page Click here

Finally news from the Ontario Men's Pairs Championships. I was playing with Jake Masterson in this event. Jake is originally from the Peterborough club and I have watched him come through the youth ranks to become an excellent bowler. The championship was held at the Woodstock club and there were 25 teams competing. The format was double knock-out. Two losses and you've gone! We had the misfortune in round one to draw the team that would go on to win the gold medal..... and lost. And with that one loss every game becomes a pressure game to stay in the Championship. We won our next two games and were down to the last ten teams. After 17 ends we were two ahead and in the 18th and last end we we were one down with the opposition having last shot. Unfortunately for us their skip played a great shot to remove our bowl which was lying second and scored three. Heartbreak!

Good Bowling
Bill Arthur
June 26th 2023

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

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.