2017 Sees a 121 year old club making big steps to secure its future.

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Please remember for live updates on the club, news and events visit us at www.facebook.com/southparkbowls and www.twitter.com/southparkbowls

Membership

2017 has been a massive season in terms of securing new members.  After amalgamating the 2 clubs that bowl at South Park into one we have managed to build on our efforts to raise the clubs profile.  The overall aim to revive bowls at South Park and big steps are being made to achieve this long term plan.

If you wish to become a new member please contact me on 07984 603455 or scott@southparkbowls.co.uk

Bowls Green Enclosure

We are currently liaising with Darlington Borough Council and Groundworks to try and get an enclosure around the bowls green.  We are nearing consultation stages and have 3 designs that will be circulated publically soon.  The aim is to enhance the look and help secure the bowls green both for the security of the bowlers, its equipment and also provide an arena where open days and events can be ran and controlled in an orderly and safe environment.

Competition

At South Park we are currently a work in progress in terms of competitiveness, we have almost a full team of new bowlers.  This is superb for the club, however it obviously reflects in results, please see final tables www.southparkbowls.wordpress.com/fixtures/.  We believe that this will get better in each and every year as our bowlers develop.  Congratulations this year to all club competition winners and also those who had success in league competitions.

This year saw our Veterans team relegates, 2 further teams finish bottom of the table and one team narrowly missing out on promotions, but again this is not a problem as the importance of our club is to build a future, competitive success comes with time and persistence.

Social Events & Carpet Bowls

The club is close to securing a social winter carpet bowls league to be played on Wednesday Evenings from November alongside our friends at Darlington Woodland Bowls Club.  This is to be in a pairs format, again anyone interested in playing or entering a team please get in touch!

Our other social events this winter are likely to be a Casino evening, and an Archery session.  Again we enjoyed Quoits this year at Darlington Quoit Club and hope to again arrange this event in 2018 and invite their club to try bowls also.

Thanks to everyone, the committee, the bowlers and the public for making 2017 an enjoyable bowling year.

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Life is a Rollercoaster #rideit

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Its been another rollercoaster season but I cant help but reflect proudly. We have recruited 7 new members this year with the possibility of another 2 or 3 joining next week. We have used 28 players in total which is terrific in the climate of the game , especially in Darlington where most are struggling to make ends meet.

WE NEED MORE THOUGH CONTACT ME – SCOTT@SOUTHPARKBOWLS.CO.UK

How has this been achieved bowlers may ask. Well its simple really, get off yer butts and make it happen, can you name any other clubs that had:-

* 100 kids playing on their green last weekend?
* Archery, Quoits, Casino nights?
* Regular newspaper adverts?
* Regular Social Media Promotion
* Liaison with local council and community groups

Its impossible to keep everyone happy in this world but if you don’t try, you don’t get. Its time that other clubs stopped using excuses for the dying game and promoted the sport, also get rid of all the old fashioned mentalities which is holding the game back! – Can you believe in 2016 we still expect players and young kids to wear grey trousers and in most circumstances white shirts!

Lets start breeding new ideas in drab boring leagues, lets embrace change and start getting some people back on the green – its easy if you want it enough!

DONT FORGET WEDNESDAY 27TH JULY AT DARLINGTON QUOIT CLUB 7PM WE HAVE ANOTHER SOCIAL NIGHT AHEAD – ITS FREE, LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE COMING – THANKS

#LoveDarlo – Free Bowls July 3rd

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On July 3rd 2016 between 10am and 4pm Darlington Neighbourhood Watch are running a free event in an attempt to battle against all the negativity around the cuts in the town at the moment.

We have been asked to participate and invite you all to join us on the bowls green free of charge. Along with this we will be advertising free membership until the end of the season and encouraging people to join.

Or aims for the day:-

1. New Members
2. Public Participation (all day if you wish)
3. Aiming for a new ladies team (need 9 new female members)
4. Aiming for new mixed team (need 9 new bowlers of any gender)
5. Any donations towards our security problems welcome
6. Show people some of the history of bowls at South Park
7. A days enjoyment!
8. Raise awareness of the sport and its availability for the towns people

Independence Day

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South Park Bowls Club can announce that as of 3rd June 2016 not only are the South Park Vets part of our club we have also become our own CASC that will collect green fees for the bowlers from January 2017.

These fees will allow the club to start working towards securing the green, improving its facilities and also promoting the club in a modern way to attract new bowlers. Its only the beginning but all bright futures started somewhere!

We are now in discussions with the Council about some kind of Victorian perimeter fence to enhance the green as a spectacle and to assist with our problems.

On another note there is progress on our ongoing problems with youths harassing the bowlers. We have had meetings with the Council, the Youth Offending Service and also the PCSO’s. We have numbers to call for the CCTV team, also are being given extra patrols by the PCSO’s who have already attended some of our games to help ease our problems.

On top of this we cant thanks Francis Jones and Sparta Security enough who have been helping us and are on call whenever problems arise, we are very grateful for their help which they have volunteered.

Unfortunately we are not able to thank bowling clubs who haven’t supported us whilst we have these security problem, 2 clubs have already shown unwillingness to bowl at South Park and only Darlington Woodland have kindly offered us temporary accommodation. This lack of support may cause us no end of problems but we have to keep battling to ensure bowls at South Park remains popular.

On a social note we have 2 events coming up in Archery and Quoits – both great fun, please contact me if you would like to come!
Saturday 9th July – Archery – Dolphin Centre 5pm then drinks afterwards.
Wednesday 27th July – Quoits – Darlington Quoits Club 7pm