Category: Community

On 4th December Peter Ring and Derek Spiller ran a three hour session at the Club for ten graduate Occupational Therapy Students and their Lecturer, Annette Feaks, from Brighton University covering the use of the wide range of disabled bowling equipment now available. We have subsequently received the following letter from Annette:-

“I wanted to message yourself to convey how impressed we were with the session provided at the bowls club by Peter and Derek on 4^th December.

Their communication in advance of the session was very efficient with a clear agenda of what to expect, in addition we were made to feel very welcome during the activity.

The encouragement received and explanation was very sensitive and appropriate and we really appreciate the opportunity to speak with bowlers whose needs have recently altered and trial some of the adaptive equipment. The students really valued the session and now have an idea of how this activity could be used for those they may work with, and perhaps there’s some budding bowlers amongst them too!

We were really impressed by the scope of the bowls club and had no idea that the provision was so far reaching, it really assisted in cementing the sense of belonging that such a community holds, this is a really important concept in occupational therapy and was very evident during the session, please do extend our thanks once again to Peter and Derek as well as the other bowlers there on the day who made us feel welcome and answered our questions.”

Peter Ring, our Club President and Ambassador for Disability Bowls England in Sussex commented “this session is part of our continuing commitment to disability bowls and community engagement. We hope to run these sessions on a regular basis in the future.”

Our President, Peter Ring, is also the Disability Bowls England ambassador for Sussex and has recently shown Judy Plater, Disability Bowls England national developement and administrative officer how our club is encouraging people of all abilities to enjoy bowling.

Judy has written an article in January’s edition of Bowls International Magazine promoting Peter’s good work.

To read her article click here.

Malcolm Goman recently met up with Richard Hollands who is the Regional Community Relations Lead at Abbots Wood Manor Care Home who have sponsored our latest club jacket.

During the recent Eastbourne Festival for Accessible Sport Derek Spiller,
Fred Hughes, Chris and Anita Feltham promoted the Club and the work we
are doing for disability access and inclusion. Our display included examples
of equipment to aid people with a disability to play Bowls as well as details of
facilities at the Club for social activities and meetings etc., for use by non
bowlers from the disabled community.

L-R Derek Spiller, Fred Hughes, Chris Feltham

Held at the Archery Field and Sports Hall, Seaside Road the event was well
attended and included demonstrations of a variety of sports for the the
disabled during what was a lovely sunny day. Our stand had a steady stream
of visitors and useful contacts were made with local groups including
Eastbourne MS Society, Eastbourne Blind Society and Eastbourne
Parkinsons Society.

The annual Eastbourne Festival for Accessible Sport is organised by Defiant
Sports, a local charity who provide coaching, events and competitions for
disabled sports. Further details can be found on www.defiantsports.org.uk
We are pleased that we are collaborating with Defiant Sports to make the
game of Bowls available to players of all abilities.

As members of Disability Bowls England our aim is to work towards being a
preferred Club to host County and National Disabled Bowls Matches in
addition to to the above. These exciting developments form part of our on
going community initiatives and we look forward to posting progress updates
in the future

What a weekend 19/20^th March 2022

A huge thank you to all our fantastic members for their support and donations throughout the weekend and also to those bowlers from other clubs, Falaise, Langney, Egerton, Denton, Preston and outdoor clubs from Hailsham and Hellingly who also took part.

The Mayor of Eastbourne, Councillor Pat Rodohan opened the event and had a bowl as did his wife The Mayoress, Eastbourne’s MP Caroline Ansell came along to support the event and we also had representatives from SCIBA, SCWIBA, Disability Bowls England and of course CWCF (Children With Cancer Fund – Polegate) the local charity that we were raising funds for.

Over the 24 hours Terry Prior and Peter Ring bowled 148 ends with a total score of 255 points. With the help of members that joined them on rink 1 a total of 2,664 bowls were bowled and they covered 4,884 meters (5342 yards, 3.035 miles) each! On all the other rinks a staggering 6,402 bowls were bowled in a variety of games including a session of Aussie Pairs, general roll-ups and the nightshift (some in their pyjamas) decided to have an obstacle course to keep them awake.

The total raised over the 24 hour period including our ‘Just Giving’ page was the phenomenal amount of £4,600

For those of you who don’t know our club has been supporting CWCF since September 2018 and had raised a total of £6,304 before ‘Lockdown’ in March 2020.

After ‘Lockdown’ was eased late in 2021 we continued to run events such as Mixed Drives, our Presidents 5’s tournament, a Beatles Night and various raffles to raise funds for CWCF culminating in the 24hr Bowl-a-thon and the total raised from all these events is £5,935 which means so far we have raised a grand total of £12,239 for this very worthy charity.

Last Sunday 27th March 2022 Terry, Peter and Derek appeared on the Sylvie Blackmore Show to give feedback on how well our 24hr Bowl-a-Thon went and announce how much it has raised so far for the Children With Cancer Fund – Polegate.

It’s well worth a listen, if you missed it the link to it is

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bsy8q1

The timeline should be at 3.40 to start listening.