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Last Friday, believe it or not the 13th of July, Devizes met the challenge of supporting a 9 rink home friendly against Newport O60’s League. A side on a day trip out from a number of clubs in the Newport area who play in their local O60’s league
The first challenge to be met was the unusual format of the match where the request was for six rinks of men and three rinks of ladies even though the match was one game not two separate ones. The challenges were to get enough players, to supply enough food and to keep the bar running all needing extra work from the usual few volunteers.
The match itself was played in excellent spirit and very friendly whilst all suffered with the heat. The result was a close finish with the visitors winning by just 13 shots at 184 to 171. Top rink for Devizes was Stan Rutherford, Keith Bruton, Bernard Fox and Dave Greenwood.
Many thanks to those who brought a plate of food making for an excellent buffet and a special thanks to Patricia Reeves, Rosemary Bradbury, Wendy Gaisford and Jenny Coates who provided extra support in the kitchen as well as Jill Halliday and Liz Soellner who ran the bar.
Our visitors enjoyed themselves so much they even asked if they could repeat the visit next year and were full of praise for the club as the President, Rosemary Bradbury, said her goodbyes to them as they boarded their coach for home.

Dave Greenwood

This years Captains Charity Day was held on the afternoon of 15th July and yet again it turned out to be a very hot day.

There were 34 members in attendance and Captain Bev, assisted by Vice-Captain Ellen, set up four rinks with two sat out whilst nine ends were played. All came into the clubhouse at this stage to take a breather and take a drink to revitalise . The two seated out were then brought into the game and a further nine ends completed an afternoon of friendly and enjoyable bowling with friends.

Everyone had brought a plate of food so there was plenty to each whilst conversation flowed and Bev sorted out the winners of the various competitions that were run, see list below. A raffle was run whilst the monies collected from the charity box, raffles, spider and guess the weight of the cake and whiskey draw were added up.

Winners were:-

Whiskey – Colin Smith, Guess the cake weight – Josie Mulligan, Spider – Ken Roberts

The overall winner was of course the charity, Alzheimer’s Support, to the tune of £200

Well done all

Many congratulations to the Ladies of Bowls Wiltshire Johns Trophy Team who, following a magnificent win over the highly rated Devon team, qualified for the national semi-finals to be held at Royal Leamington Spa on Saturday August 4th. We are very proud to say that the team includes our very own Ladies Captain Bev Lilley. Well done the ladies, well done Bev.

Should anyone wish to go and see them please refer to my email announcing that there is a coach organised by Bowls Wiltshire Ladies starting from Melksham.

Dave Greenwood

Captain for the day Dave Greenwood took a team of players to Trowbridge Town to play a mixed four triples friendly on Saturday 14th July. Because of so many commitments it was a scratch team having to phone around for extras even as late as the night before.

It was, as it has been for a while now, very hot and the greens were a hard and rude awakening especially for a few newer members that had not experienced such conditions before, so the result was much as anticipated. A win on all four rinks for Trowbridge Town.

Congratulations to Jeff Whiting, Marie Greenwood and Debbie Greenwood who held on to the end in the lead but just lost out on the last two ends to record a final score of 16-19, a shot difference of 3, becoming the least losing rink and therefore top rink for Devizes closely followed By Terry Bazeley, Ellen Stiles and Geoff Woollan who had a shot difference of 4.

Rink 1: Jeff Whiting, Marie Greenwood and Debbie Greenwood lost 16-19.
Rink 2: Terry Bazeley, Ellen Stiles and Geoff Woollan lost 12-16.
Rink 3: Liz Soellner, Chris Holt and Dave Greenwood lost 9-18.
Rink 4: Peter Diwell, Lynn Hicks and Denise Howard lost 6-31.

Total scores Trowbridge Town 84- Devizes 43

Not a good result tonight (Thursday 12th July) for the “A” team. On our rink it was very close till we dropped a 4 and never really recovered.
Bob and Chris really had an uphill struggle with 2 against 3 but really did well to draw overall game 16 – 16 but having to drop 25 %
Chris had good start but lost out in end by 4 an excellent achievement as they were down by a lot more at times,
But Duncan and his team, both new players to the (A) team really did do well to win by 12.

Rink 1: G.Woollen, K.Roberts, M.Mitcham, lost 9-20
Rink 2: C.Holt, B.Budden, lost 12-16 with 25% deducted for a player short.
Rink 3: J.Jefferies, K.Curtis, D.Poole, won 25-13.
Rink 4: D.Tucker, C.Smith, C.Merrifield, lost 17-21.

Overall shot score was Devizes 63 to Spencer Melksham’s 70, a points share of 12 to 2

Mike Mitcham
Team Captain

Thanks so much to those who made the company taster night on Tuesday 26th June so successful – although the weather was extremely hot they did enjoy it.
I will contact Morrisons and see if they might like to be involved, how good would that be, David Owen Accountants v J S Weeks Accountants and Sainsburys Supermarket v Morrisons Supermarket.

There is a possible approach from David Owen to host a corporate event here later in the year with another company they liaise with on a regular basis.

We will also have to seek support for an application from Phab – It is understood they might be approaching the Club , for an evening.

Many thanks to Terry who as usual did do well with the organisation of the evenings fish and chip supper.

Jenny Coates.

My thanks to those of you who gave such valuable support to the final coaching session, the challenge between the class of 2017 and 2018 on Saturday 23rd June.

Interestingly there were 8 bowlers from the 2017 group and 8 from the 2018 lot so we were able to field 1 rink and 2 triples.

The general feeling was that it was a great experience and I have already been thinking of how we could build on this for next year.

There was a healthy atmosphere and they all enjoyed their tea.

Dave and Sheila gave them all a centenary bowls towel and a coaster.

Jenny Coates

On Wednesday 20th June 2018, a group of Devizes bowlers and visitors, went to London to plays bowls against the Chelsea Pensioners at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.

We were given a very warm welcome, had an interesting but enjoyable game followed by an excellent tea in the Great Hall. The weather was perfect and a great day was had by all.

Captain Bev

The title of this snippet is called “Thought for the day” perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it “Thought for the season”.

The poem below was first seen in the fixtures book of Greenhill Bowls Club Weymouth where we visited during our recent tour and could undoubtedly be in vogue for most clubs, particularly the smaller clubs BUT, i never thought the day would come when it applied to our club with 136 playing members, however, particularly on the men’s front, we are suffering badly in terms of support causing the workload to fall very heavily on just a few and major headaches for the team leaders when it comes to team selection each week. Please read carefully and consider if perhaps you could be available a little more often in order to relieve the stress on the team leaders and give those playing too many games the chance of a break..

DO YOU BELONG

Are you an active Bowler, the kind who would be missed
Or are you just contented that your name is on the list
Do you attend the meetings and discuss things with the crowd
Or do you stay at home, then grumble long and loud.

Do you help with catering, visit a member who is sick
Or leave the work to just a few, then complain about the clique
Do you support the functions and play a useful role
Or do you comment, “I only want to bowl”.

Come to the green more often and help with hand and heart
Don’t be just a member, but take an active part
Think this over member, you must know right from wrong
Are you an active member or do you just belong.

Wednesday evening the 28th March saw the final game of the season for our short mat enthusiasts. The evening, for this occasion, was limited to a shorter number of games in order to celebrate the way the season had gone with a fish and chip supper organised by the team leader and development officer Terry Miles.

After a drink or two and the digesting of the well enjoyed supper David Ryde-Rogers stood up and gave a short speech, thanking Terry for his efforts and congratulating him on the achievement. The short mat support had risen to almost double that at the start of the season and included, for the first time, a number of home and away friendlies.

This was followed by a presentation to Terry by Trevor Fackrell on behalf of the members.