Cracker-jacks take wrong bias

Photo: Dominion Post

Stink on the rinks: Kiwi bowlers of all levels need to stand up and be counted.

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OPINION: GO ON, take a good, long look at that little suburban bowling club down the road. Drink in its green and leafy surrounds while you still can. The way things are going it might soon be declared a burden, sold off to developers and turned into a block of flats. That's if you're lucky. The number of casual lawn bowlers might be rising but Bowls NZ's fully-registered membership roll has been plummeting. Clubs are hurting and the least viable are being allowed to fail.

The worrying part is that no-one seems particularly concerned. I mean, we throw up our arms at our fading sense of community, we have public service advertisements about the need to get a life; we're bombarded with messages about the way we eat, about how we treat each other and the dangers of drinking and frying. And yet, just about every other week we wake up to find another piece of our local neighbourhood missing.

Bowls NZ calls the shrinking process "rationalisation", a wonderfully clinical term for what is effectively a form of euthanasia. The way they see it, the inevitable amalgamation and closure of many clubs will contribute to others becoming stronger, more sustainable and capable of delivering better quality services. Hence, in 2006 they had 720 clubs. Last year, they were talking 650-plus and now they're down to 626, with a multitude of others fingered for doom.

Not that it's called the finger of doom at Bowls NZ. Its website, a sort of Basil Fawlty-meets-Captain Mainwaring production in which opponents are painted as quaint, but quite possibly mad, makes a point of clarifying that no clubs will be forced to close or amalgamate. No sir. But BNZ will help starve them of local body funding and special grants, undermine their ground leases and threaten them with breaches of the licensing laws.

This is only because, by their own admission, they can. Funders and local authorities often inquire at Centre or Bowls NZ level regarding the viability of a club before agreeing to make a grant, or renew a lease. The clubs are effectively at the mercy of the advice given on their behalf. Bowls NZ's plea that no-one is forced to accept their recommendations is ingenuous at best, sneering at worst. They seem to regard all detractors as fools.

The temptation is to wonder whether it takes one to know one. Bowls NZ's fully-fledged membership is in freefall. A graph showing the extent of the drop over recent years imitates the downhill stages of the Olympic ski jump. The only positive is that social membership is thriving; that is, the number of bowlers who join only for a recreational roll-up or a business house outing is climbing. Yet Bowls NZ continues to treat them as lepers.

These are the bowlers who sign up at a nominal cost on the understanding they're ineligible for BNZ-sanctioned competitions. The purpose for which they join the club might be to play bowls in their own community or in a business house competition, but they're still deemed to be non-members. They can't vote, they're not counted in terms of official club membership, and are generally treated as something the cat dragged in.

Despite their sky-rocketing numbers, Bowls NZ remains determined to cut off its nose to spite its face. Clubs are said to be unsustainable not because they haven't enough members, but because they haven't enough BNZ-affiliated members. The absence of social bowlers in official membership tallies, many of whom simply don't wish to commit to interclub, but enjoy the chance for casual games with friends and neighbours, has created an entirely false impression.

Quite why BNZ doesn't just change its constitution and grant full membership status to all bowling club members, social or competitive, is anyone's guess. It's not as if they couldn't charge an additional fee for those who want to contest the traditional competitions, such as interclub and the national championships. And at least then they'd avoid this nonsense of clubs being compelled to close simply because one type of member is viewed as inferior.

BNZ, however, view things differently. Rather than correct the anomaly over membership they'd prefer to encourage clubs to close and amalgamate in order to create "superclubs", in which teeming membership numbers will apparently lead to over-flowing in-house restaurants and other profitable spin-offs. This, they claim, is the only way to fully capitalise on the rising tide of casual members. They seem in no doubt they'll keep coming.

There's another, slightly more sinister aspect to this club rationalisation business as well. It involves the clause in many clubs' BNZ-recommended constitutions which invites them, upon dissolution and the payments of all debts and liabilities, to distribute any remaining funds and assets to Bowls NZ. Is it just me, or is there something a bit smelly about the idea of a governing body effectively forcing clubs to close as well as profiting from the arrangement?

Already, some clubs have been saved from extinction at the eleventh hour, often after local communities have rushed in to lend support. The beautifully picturesque Opoho club in Dunedin, situated on the fringes of the Botanical Gardens, had its leasehold renewal initially denied by the local council before being eventually rescued by concerned residents. Many other clubs have familiar stories without the happy ending.

Neighbourhood bowling clubs have long been accepted as welcoming, peaceful refuges in the suburban sprawl; places where community groups can meet during the week, where folk can play bowls competitively or recreationally, whatever their wont, and have an occasional social drink. We should rush to join them while we still can. Once they're gone we'll never get them back.

rboock@xtra.co.nz

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