Junior Bowls at Sorrento

Briefly, with the help of Bowls WA, Renee Farrell, and Department of Sport and Recreation a plan evolved. Chris Tibbits (a former member) and I attended a session of tutorials to develop a set of activities to promote junior sport in schools. Naturally we chose lawn bowls. We passed, and I enrolled in a program, “After School Activities” introducing bowls to unsuspecting Primary School students. I applied for and was successful in securing a generous grant from Sports and Recreation which resulted in Sorrento getting eight sets of mini bowls and five sets of small Henselite bowls. With Bill Long (sadly no longer with us), and Renee we attended three schools and had particular success with Sacred Heart school, which had excellent facilities.

Sometime later I contacted all local High Schools offering bowls as an option in their sports program. I got a good response but possibly because of the need for them to use our greens, no commitment came, except Carine High School. Yes, finally got there. The teacher did her homework, booked seven or so sessions and with some help put together a programme based on an excellent handbook I had. Though a success no further interest was shown until the last school term last year when three groups of 25 Year 10 students were booked for 30 sessions.

The persuasive Ken Giles asked Alex Third and myself to supervise and offer what knowledge we could to present a new experience for them. We wondered if we would last this huge commitment we made. Well, the experience was so rewarding! Their behaviour, enthusiasm, and willingness to learn was just amazing. Their skills rapidly improved and most of the boys and girls could competitively play the game.

So, to this year. Another three groups of 25 booked for what turned out to be 8 weeks. Alex and Colin Campbell took responsibility for