Welcome to Ware
Bowling Club
Weekend Friendlies 2025:
Sat 18th April.
Opening game of the season played at WBC.
President Select v Captains Team
The 2025 Ware Bowling Club (WBC) annual winter tour to Torquay recently took place with a recent record number of people going down to Devon - offset by a record number of people who were not bowling!! Added to this we had a few casualties just before and during the week so fulfilling 3 matches each day was an ongoing challenge to Graeme, Carol and Eric - so thanks to them for sticking with it as I believe everybody enjoyed the 4 days of indoor bowling !! Half of our total of 12 indoor bowling matches were against local sides from the Torbay area whilst the other half were against Trentham Bowling Club from Reading who were also staying at the hotel the same time as WBC. Our complete set of results across the 4 days were:-
Mon 10th Feb
Ware v. Brixham (Triples) - Won 53-33
Ware v. Paignton / Newton Abbot (Triples) - Lost 28-54
Ware v. Kingsteignton (Triples) - Lost 39-60
Tues 11th Feb
Ware v. Trentham Blue (Fours) - Won 42-34
Ware v. Trentham Red (Fours) - Lost 42-51
Ware v. Kings / Victoria (Triples) - Lost 36-58
Wed 12th Feb
Ware v. Trentham Blue (Fours) - Won 44-25
Ware v. Trentham Red (Fours) - Lost 33-55
Ware v. Chudleigh (Triples) - Won 57-45
Thurs 13th Feb
Ware v. Totnes (Triples) - Lost 36-46
Ware v. Trentham Blue (Fours) - Won 51-39
Ware v. Trentham Red (Fours) - Lost 40-55
Overall Record
Won 5, Lost 7 (points for = 501, points against = 555)
Weekend Friendlies 2025:
To Follow
Ware's The Community
Recently Southern Maltings hosted a Ware's The Community event where 40+ local social organisations and clubs, including Ware Bowling Club, came together to show the public many varied hobbies, pastimes and activities on offer from many groups in our town. Our stall was staffed by John and Jackie (our men's and ladies captains) and many people stopped by for a chat about bowling in general and WBC in particular. It is hoped we see some of these visitors to our table, and others, when we open our gates to the general public on our annual WBC Open Day on Saturday 3rd May from 2.00pm to 4.30pm.
Winter 2025:
WBC Bingo Nights in March & April 2025
After bingo on Saturday 15th February, a further four bingo nights this winter close season are currently earmarked as follows:-
Sat 1st March, Sat 22nd March, Sat 5th April, Sat 12th April
Staffing Clubhouse Bar - 2025 Season
We urgently need some more members to step up and join the bar team.
To put things in perspective, as I write this, we have 110 bar shifts needing to be filled and that’s having deducted shifts for which team members have already volunteered.
If we only allocate one person to every home match, on the basis that there will normally be at least one bar team member playing who can help out during the busy half hour when the match finishes, that reduces the required shifts to 92.
As things stand at the moment, we have 14 active members on the bar team so 7 if we allocate two members per shift as we would normally do, especially for evening matches. Many team members have already volunteered for some shifts so you will realise that covering the remaining shifts will be almost impossible.
So our options are pretty limited but, as I see it, they are:
1. Recruit more members to join the bar team
2. Employ outside staff for those weekends when we can’t find staff. If we manage to staff 50% of our weekend commitments ourselves, that would leave us having to pay c£1500 minimum to employ staff for the other 50%, which would have to be covered by an increase in subscription. This is not an option that any member would want.
Members need to understand that if we can’t staff the bar for any particular shift, then it simply won’t open. As the bar is a substantial part of our revenue, any closure would have a significant impact on our income and the reduction would have to be covered by increased subscription. It would also be very embarrassing for the club if we were unable to open the bar for a visit from another club.
So basically, it's up to all members to ask themselves if they can help by joining the bar team. Current team members will, I know, cover as many shifts as they can, but there’s a limit to what we are able to commit. Please get in touch with me by phone or by email at warebowlsmatch24@gmail.com if you can commit some time to helping your club by joining the bar team. We’re just about to take delivery of a new touch screen till in the first week of March which will make things even more straightforward, so it's an ideal time to get involved. Full training will be given, not just for the new till, on which we will all need training, but for all aspects of running our bar. The more people we have, the less will be the necessary commitment.
I know bar work doesn’t suit everyone, but with less than 25% of our members taking an active part in the actual running of the club, there must surely be members in the other 75% who could help to run our club efficiently and economically.
David Thomson