2010 April Monthly Report

Most ‘Snowbirds have now departed for UK, albeit some were delayed through the aircraft disruption due to the Iceland Volcano fall out. April was fairly quiet apropos club competitions. The ‘new look’ Millennium took place, members were involved in the new alliance CALB and we had several days of visitors. Also the two main club summer competitions, Eleanor McCraw and Reliant Trophy commenced on 26th and 30th respectivelly.
This Millennium Invitation Club Triples, replacing the original, ‘Millennium Invitation Rinks’ when three teams of ‘Fours’ were invited from all of our local bowling clubs to play a one day round –robin format competition. The change is in the year 2000 when the Competition began, clubs were a lot less populated and reasonably easy to implement without upsetting other members who weren’t invited as one of the three teams. Times have also changed in as much local clubs have developed different in house fixtures of their own. This was the opportunity for this year to include the fixture for our members only. A decision will be made in due course whether this competition will continue in this way.  Winners were Jim Pike, Terry Rodgers and Ann Tuplin. Runner ups were Graham and Catherine Patrick with Jim Anderson.
The first group of visitors on 12th April from Skerries B.C. in Ireland went down very well with everyone taking part thoroughly enjoying themselves. Next year they have invited us to visit them in the summer whereby a list went up in the clubroom to gauge the interest. This was very well supported and a big thank you to Ann Tuplin, our illustrious social secretary for taking charge of the organization. Watch this space!
We also had an enormous group from Somerset, Purnell B.C. arriving with 44 players to play on 13th and 21st April. Because of limited green space and Almeria players, the majority of the visitors played against themselves. We produced three teams of four playing three of theirs. Results were not important, but the enjoyment factor was and everyone did just that having good games completing the day’s with a great social ‘third half’
The new alliance competitions, CALB Men and Ladies Singles and Pairs took place at La Mata B.C on 11th and 18th April respectively. Well done to Stan Brisco, for reaching the Semi-final which he unfortunately wasn’t able to win. However, one of our Pairs teams represented by Jim Pike and Terry Rodgers did very well in taking the title comfortably. Well done to Stan, Jim and Terry.
St Georges day fun day was the only other bowls information to report on. This turned out to be a wonderful sunny day with 34 players taking part in a fun competition where the results did not really matter but just enjoy themselves, which they did. Afterwards, the  St Georges Day celebrations on Miraflores  patio went very well with most players taking part enjoying  good music from ’JC’ and probably the best barbeque we have had for a long time.

Whilst writing you might remember in March I wrote a report on the Frank Sharpe Drawn Rinks Competition. I stated that the bowling and golf shop ‘Full Swing’ was no longer sponsoring the competition with tokens for the finalists. I must apologize for this as I’ve since learnt that the family had never said or implied this was the case. My source of information was incorrect and once again on the behalf of ALBC, I apologized to the family and placed in the local papers.

Let me give you the latest news on the greens. Green 1 (nearest to bar) is now in operation and bowling very well and looking good. Green 2 has been spiked and holotyned (don’t know how to spell it) re-seeded and top soiled. The majority of the initial preparation was done by Les and Jim , they both give a big thank you to all those members who took time out and worked extremely hard spreading the top soil. We will have two great greens at the start of the autumn bowling, won’t we!!!!!!!!!!

At the time of writing our members Alan Beattie, Brian Tidswell and John Compton who have all been through a lot apropos there health, the situation is they are all fairing as well as possible and trust this will continue.

Most of the above can be found on our website, www.bowlingalmeria.com with full reports and photographs. If I receive any news worth reporting on during the summer will do so, otherwise expect the first monthly report of the autumn in October.

Vic Parsons
ALBC Press Officer