The Sunday morning  Novelty Draw wrapped up Sun. Oct. 5 with session 24 of the 2025 season. The group attending enjoyed a pizza lunch and presented Donna Blackstock with a framed photo of the group to remain at the club to celebrate the successes of this weekly collaborative effort.

 

In years past we did a few refresher lessons for second year bowlers and occasionally a novelty draw like Crown Bowling for a bit of variety. When the decision to increase the number of Open Houses was made we also decided to offer a regular draw of novelty games each week to provide ongoing support to our new members and a refresher and practice opportunity for recent bowlers. 

 

The success of that first year surpassed our expectations. We now have a significant number of new coaches within the group who, along with the new bowlers, have continued to grow as coaches. We do some singles training on Sundays and have significant numbers in our club novice tournaments and have added intermediate singles tournaments in the last couple of years. A club markers clinic increased and refreshed our singles markers so that we now have an active pool of 25.

 

Oak Bay also has the highest participation of all BSI clubs in the recently created (2023 Novice Intermediate Tournament and the Burnside Mix and Mingle)  This has helped our club to enter more bowlers in BSI Tournaments and we hope this trend will continue.

 

A group of 13 coaches were regular participants at the draws each week and were asked to introduce a tip of the week on at least one occasion. More than anything else, this group have been wonderful ambassadors for our club and are a contributing factor to member retention.

 

When we needed 20 helpers for a large group of Newcomers who visited the club I went to the Sunday morning group as a whole and had no problem picking up the helpers for the green and 3 more for the kitchen!

 

Congratulations to all!

Donna