Terrace End lead the way with positive changes

The Terrace End Bowling Club appears to me to be the leader of change in our centre.

They have spent a lot of money upgrading their greens, surrounds and seats and now have the vision to implement an entry fee of $2 for each club championship, which helps the cost of green preparation on Sundays and public holidays.

This decision was approved at their annual meeting and to those who didn't attend, it may have come as a bit of a shock. But in my view, this is the way we fund our zone and national representatives in the future.

Consider this. We now pay $15 an entry for our centre's open tournaments and only about 12 per cent of our members support the events.

I suspect most clubs get 30 to 40 per cent of their members supporting their club champs, so many will be better off. We would free up some dates, and hopefully provide better programmes for new members.

Not content with the above, today Terrace End was to have 44 teams compete in the Wilkies. Which goes to show, promote the event, charge a reasonable fee and provide the hospitality and we all could be winners.On Saturday, the Manawatu men's and women's open triples start at 9am, the women at Takaro and the men at Palmerston North, with three rounds of section play.

Teams require two wins to progress to post-section play a fortnight later. On Sunday, the open pairs start, the women at Hokowhitu, the men at Terrace End and Hokowhitu. Same start time and format.

Without sponsors, the return of fours to the centre will be $1440 and that includes a loss of $150 from the women's events. Prizes for each event equate to $240 so in the fours you are budgeting for a prize cost of $960.

For the women to break even, they require 16 entries, two more than they got in either the pairs and triples. The men's entries (48 in the pairs and 30 in the triples) have held up well considering there are no zone or national titles to play for.Last week I suggested we consider using our champion-of-champions events as the vehicle to future national playoffs.

That could free up the dates our open tournaments use, for either extended interclub, club activity, rep fixtures or revamped centre open tournaments.

The problem with our current format is it doesn't attract outside entries. One reason is our events are played over a series of weekends and players from other centres have commitments. The downside to the champion-of-champions' format was money. How do we fund our winners to the zone and national finals?Centre selectors Eric Watson and Lyn Elphick will soon name their first teams of the season.

They both appear to be having trouble with player availability for the first outing, the Arnott Shield and Duckett Trophy for men at Wanganui and the new Taranaki fixture, the women's on November 14-15 at Palmerston North.

Tomorrow our women's five years-and-under team travels to Raumati to play for the WKWM. The team is: Lisa Graham (skip), Jean Rutherfurd and Glenda O'Connor (pairs), Sharon Groves and Mary McConway (pairs), Julia Wood (s), Bev Burton, Anne Hohua (triples), and reserve Ailsa Lindsay. I visited Johnston Park club last week with a team trying to win the Ainslie Shield.

The shield is still in Feilding so good luck to the next challenger. Wednesday afternoon is the big day at Johnston Park; they run an aggregate event throughout the season and they are getting 50-plus members attending.

It appears all clubs are doing something to generate interestSteve Toms and Pat Cohr are Palmerston's new fours champions.

Steve's team was Brian Little, Ron Henn and Bob Williams; Pat's women's team was Nancy Mead, Marilyn Free and Barbara Healy.What is the intermediate grade is a question being asked by some centre officials.

For oldtimers like myself, it was a grade we played in for years until we got elevated to the grading of three or skip in our club.

But now gradings apparently no longer apply. They were used during the club roll-up, but it is no longer a major feature of a club's programme.

So should the centre continue with the men's intermediate grade? That's something else members need to consider for the next annual meeting.Correction: Hine Bennett-Davies has won three other centre titles. Thanks to Paul Tregoweth's research.

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