LAST week most of our women’s bowling ladies enjoyed a beautiful lunch by the Greens Bistro in the club Functions Room, followed by our 2023 Presentation Day.

The honours were shared between our most experienced players, a group who have played for 5-6 years, and our newest bowler Deb as well.

The champions for the year were Singles- Manor Smith; Fours- Joan Haigh, Marg Duffus, Michelle Fredericks and Gloria Richardson; Triples- Teresa Meehan, Sandra Seckold & Kim Porter; Pairs- Nerida Blackford & Pat Fletcher; Minor Singles- Rosemary Dugdale; Major/Minor Pairs- Chris Davis & Kim Porter; Consistency Singles- Manor Smith & Restricted Singles- Rosemary Dugdale.

Using a points system, Kim Porter was named our Women’s Club Player of the Year- congratulations Kim. Apparently it was a very close result, which shows the depth our club is gaining with our players.

Many of our ladies are ready for our pennants season to begin. We will be represented in Grades 2 and 3 this year. Matches start with home games at Nambucca on Tuesday and Thursday.

Last week we played our Pennants teams against their grade partners. The results were- Grade 3 – E. Brown, M. Duffus, T. Meehan & D. Mann def T. Ryan, A. Reid, R. Dugdale & K. Dale 16-15; and the Grade 2- K. Porter, K. Liddell, N. Blackford & P. Fletcher def G. Richardson, M. Montgomery, S. Seckold & E. Fleming 23-13. Good luck to our teams for the upcoming competition.

The Pennants season has been completed and our Grade 2 Women’s team are the new champions. The ladies began with two strong wins at home. Round 1 saw a win 46-28 against C Ex Coffs and the challenge was thrown down by the Coffs team for their home game in the next round. It was very satisfying then to win again on their rinks, 42-35 in Rd 4, with great bowls played by all our teams to come from behind and gain the overall win on the day.

Round 2 was a very good result against Park Beach at home, 59-25. In the return game at Park Beach, where it is always hard to get a win, our teams ended up 39 all. After leading the big board comfortably for most of the match, it got pretty shaky, and we could have gone down in the end, but we managed to hang on and get the draw. Overall Nambucca came away as the winners for 2023, a well deserved result.

Grade 3 ladies were less experienced than their competition teams from Sawtell, C Ex Coffs, Park Beach and Woolgoolga. The teams played some very close games, with hard fought wins at home. They learnt a lot from the season and will be stronger next year.

Recent Thursday social match results were: J. Haigh, B. Jones & P. Fletcher def A. Reid, P. James & E. Fleming 15-13; N. Blackford 7 D. Mann def T. Meehan & R. Dugdale 20-11; M. Montgomery & C. Davis def K. Liddell & J. Cedelland 21-17; and M. Duffus, S. Seckold & M. Smith def E. Brown, T. Ryan & K. Porter 20-14.

On the last two Wednesdays we have seen our new bowler, Hannah, having a roll up with some of our members.

She is getting better each week and is really enjoying it. If you’d like to come down Wednesday afternoon and try it out, drop in to the club and join us. Sunday morning mixed bowls is also a chance for you to enjoy the game of bowls.

I often talk about our club being the club with heart and this has been well and truly demonstrated this month with fundraising events, our Community Expo and now our efforts to help out Shoretrack after a robbery.

Our members have shown how well our club and the community can lend a hand, raise some money and offer support to those in need.

Come on down Friday night to show your support by buying Hundreds Club raffle tickets and a meal.

By Nerida BLACKFORD