Bowls Masters Remember

Yesterday, Sept 23, 2015 a great name in Sports has passed at the age of 90.

A Name and Player who made his Sport

and this is the apporiate time to speak about our older Members and champions who have given so much to us, our club and our sport
 Does your club have spectators who are long time members and have reached an age while health and physical ability does not permit them to bowl.  Yes, every club has a few, who are at every competition or Local Social Game.

Last year I was playing in the city's Recreation Centre which had a Boxing Club training. Yes we were all watching as we waited for the announcement of teams.  A tall gentleman passed me and as he walked through the door of the noisy Boxing Club, everything went quite.
For  a few minutes all you heard was the Boxers in the Ring with the Punch and Footwork sounds. Then a voice was heard to say, "Fellow Club Members, we are honored to have with us tonight, the Quebec Lightweight Champion, MR.(name) "

In Blind Lawn Bowls or Visually Impaired Bowls, we find a lot of older bowlers and coaches giving their time to help these special need players to enjoy an evening on the green.  Sometimes, they even take a Coaching (assistance or helper) role and travel to National and International Competitions.

Since a Visually Impaired Bowler does not have visual understanding of the Lawn Bowl's Head these coaches or assistance often are able to offer their years of experience in Competition to improve the play and decision of their bowler.

Recently, we have seen the use of Bowl Pushers which help older bowlers to get the bowl on it way without a lot of bending. Yes, Bowls is a young man sport when it comes to Competitions which last for several days and 18 ends two or three game a day. 

But anything that a club does to encourage the previous generation of champions to participate is good for the sport.  When I started bowls, a older gentleman took me under his wings and give me the love of the sport which he had.  Today at 70, I offer my advice to younger more capable bowlers.  Does your club have a place for older members ?  No I am not talking a Social application.  They loved bowls and would love to be active even if just on special holiday social games.

A few years back our club offered Duel Player Games.  When the walking up and down the green is the hardest part of the game for Senior Bowlers, a Duel Player stays at his end of the green during half of the game.  At the other end of the green is another partner who bowls his bowls back for him. These two bowlers act as a singular bowler and only walk up the green to change ends at the mid-point of the game.  (14 end game at 7th end).   The last bowler I helped at this was a founding member of the club who has almost lost his sight and was at the club for a club event.  His family got involved and before the 4th end I was no longer needed.  

There are many ways to involve our older members.  If your heart is in wanting to involve them you will find a way.  As our great Yogi Berra said as one of his "Yogi-isms" "It ain't over until its over". 

Even if you are asking advice of an old National or International Competition Lawn bowler who is no longer bowls, you will show your appreciation for all he has done for your sport.  Be more than a taker of Club services... Be a builder

Lawn Bowls in Ukraine

From Blogger's  Stats on visitors to "Lawn Bowls- Using the Head" Blog on Sept 11, 2015, I 

Bowls Stats Sept 11, 2015

see many  "UNIQUE" hits from Ukraine this past summer, so I decided to do some research as to the extend of Lawn Bowls in the Ukraine.  First to use a dictionary English to Ukraine for "Lawn Bowls" which I discovered is " Миски з газон" in Ukraine. Good start because if Lawn Bowls is in  the dictionary and part of the language, then the people must be playing the sport. As I have only 55 blogs and the readers are reading everything (and in English) I figured it worth the search.  I did not know if I pasted a non-English word into Google what I would get as result.. Very Interesting.

Lawn Bowls Ukraine

  First the Google results are 412,000 which is quite a lot And because u are going to another country have a good
 Virus Control installed.. (actually Norton displayed virus detection information in Russian when it found a dangerous site) The Google Search results have on the first line a  "Translate this page"(By the way, if you decide to try this search go to the actual website and if interesting then go back and do a  Google Translation of pages Instead of translate each page )

    Well Share with me this is going to be fun.  (and requires a lot of patience) After 5 hours of Google search of common sites like World Bowls and Language searches I found little so will update this blog when I have better info.

First found in the translation was for Lawn Bowls for Dogs". Yes " the latest development of US veteranians " Guess it is more like a "in the grass eating" tool for the health of the dogs. (see note at bottom of Blog)
  Next translation...Deposit Photo a download site for photos then a Android Cellphone App for Virtual Lawn Bowls. The most common Lawn Bowl found was what we would call a In house Flower Pot except with a more Greek Style base.
  Began feeling that it was best is to go back to Google.com with a new search. after using the translation by "Imtranslate.net" .  Now with " Lawn Bowls Clubs" or "Газон миски клуб"  in Russian (or Ukriane)  I  still got 339,000 results. Probably due to Travel Agency offering clubs with Lawn Bowls facilities some where else in the world. (Also again Photos )

Because the above Blog statistics for the 11 september shows a 74 viewer of the blog, " How to Measure which bowl is shot" I realize that this sort of Blog viewing usually occurs when a club member see something good on-line and posts it on the club board.  For this reason I will wait for more information before completing this blog.  Maybe one of these viewers from Ukraine will contact me on twitter (@springhiler or do a comment to this blog.

However, on the same subject, that blog of measuring; when I was watching the Canadian Lawn Bowls Gold Metal game this past month I notice a player try touse that method of Checking which bowl was shot. From his body movements I realize  that he did not understood  how to do it.  My mistake,  probably badly explained... Soon, I  will do a better blog but the mistake is that the individual thought just putting his foot there he could see what bowl was shot.  Not So... Your ability depends on finding the mid-point accurately and seeing accurately 90 degrees out from your foot.  Good to see it used ,,, sad to see I didn't explain it well...

Thank you for your interest.. will continue to search the web for great bowls information.


Added Note (copied from a Russian translated site)

Dog Lawn Bowl - It is known that dogs often too quickly absorb the food, just lashing out at it, and swallowing it all at one sitting. Because of this, the animal can  create health problems.  To help the four-legged friend to eat normally, experts have proposed a new device that approaches the normal course of  feeding.  It is a bowl that has a special design. . It is a unique model of what looks like lawn where the grass grows high. . The total surface 43 "stalk" of a height from 5 to 10 cm, which are arranged at small distances from each other.  Inbetween these interstices between the "grass" one serves and pour the food which will not have access as free as in a conventional bowl. . The creators estimate that the time it will take for a dog to get the food out of a bowl, will be almost 20 minutes.  (Ofcourse, I had to correct the grammer of this text after translation..Always)