NANAIMO — The first tournament of the season at the Nanaimo Lawn Bowling Club is a mixed triples event.
On May 3-4 there will be 16 teams from the north island on the greens.
Nanaimo club president Ian Yewer said triples is the most commonly played version of lawn bowling.
“We invite players from Port Alberni, Courtenay, Qualicum, Parksville and Nanaimo. We’ve got 16 teams playing over two days.”
Yewer said there’s a strong contingent from the Nanaimo club.
“We’re got five of the 16 teams from Nanaimo. They know the green so home field advantage helps. We’ve got some very good teams and a good chance a local team would win.”
Each year the lawn bowling club kicks off the season with events for prospective new members.
“We’ve had three open houses and they were all very successful. We had just over 70 people come and try out lawn bowling. We had a lot of interest and it’s really promising for us.
Last year Nanaimo had 150 members and with 90 sign ups already Yewer believes they will get close to that number again in 2025.
The mixed triples tournament may be the first of the year, however it’s not the largest.
“Our biggest tournament is the Gold Bowl in July,” Yewer said. “Right now we’ve got 24 teams signed up and the maximum we can have is 32 teams. It’s the biggest tournament in the north island.
Later in the season Nanaimo will host a major event for the first time in the club’s history.
“We have the BC Senior Games here in September. We’re running the lawn bowling in the Senior Games. There’s qualifying in Parksville in May and the top two teams will move on the finals in Nanaimo in September.”
The first weekend of June is always National Bowls Day and to celebrate this year the club is doing something unique.
“We’re having a 12 hour bowling marathon. We’re going to have teams from the club raise money for Fairview Elementary School for their breakfast and lunch program. We raised $500 from a small tournament last year and our goal this year is closer to $4,000.”
Later in the summer the Nanaimo Lawn Bowling Club and Nanaimo Sports and Social Club will offer a short league.
“They come down once a week. We teach them the game and then over eight weeks they play a league. Last year that helped us pick up ten new members.”
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