Chairman’s Corner

Happy New Year

I hope you have had a very happy and restful holiday break. On behalf of the Board committee, I wish you all the best for 2023. May you enjoy your bowls and even have some success on the green.

Christmas Party

Over 80 members and guests enjoyed the Christmas Lunch held on Sunday 11 December. Our thanks go to Liz Hollister, Garth Aston, Marlene Black and their many helpers who made the day such a success.

Unfortunately, a number of people attending went down with COVID shortly after the lunch. This was certainly regrettable, but it seems now to be a constant risk whenever groups congregate.

New Faces

It is extremely pleasing that we are continuing to attract new bowling members to the club. New faces to look out for include Tim Askew, Ash Ayre, and Jim McCreadie.

A very warm welcome to all of you.

Finances

Our wonderful Treasurer, Ian Kimmorley, has prepared the half yearly accounts and I am pleased to state we are trading profitably and should achieve a modest surplus at the end of the financial year.

This is not to say there will not be challenges ahead with green maintenance and insurance costs, two of our major expenditure items, increasing more rapidly than inflation. Also, it may be necessary to undertake some refurbishments in the near future.

Happy bowling.

Roger Parks

Chairman

From the Women’s President

Happy New Year to everyone at LRBC!

December/January has proven to be a reasonably difficult time with lots of rain and interruptions from COVID however, with the positive approach by all of our lady members, we have maintained our enthusiasm for our bowls and enjoyed the festive season.

The Women’s Christmas Party was held at Northbridge Golf Club on Wednesday December 6th and was well attended and enjoyed by all the ladies. We then had our Club Christmas Party on Sunday 11th December which was a very successful and enjoyable day.

Thank you to the organisers for both of these events!

Congratulations to our Women’s Minor Singles champion, Olivia Wong.

We are still waiting for our Minor Pairs to be completed with the semi-final and final scheduled to finish before Presentation Day on Saturday 21st January. Good luck to all ladies involved.

Lorraine Forster

Women’s President

***

A Word from the Editor

Happy New Year! – Okay, maybe it’s getting a bit late for seasonal greetings, but this is our first newsletter for the year and so far, 2023 looks to be getting off to a better start than its predecessor. I returned a few days ago from four weeks in Europe, arriving mid-December in London to -8 deg C, with a thin smattering of snow on the ground as we travelled from Heathrow to our friends’ place at Oxford. Then it began to warm up and the next two weeks, spent in central Europe, were unseasonably warm – no White Christmas for us this time! Back to busy, chaotic London for five days of mild temperatures, rain on and off (it is England after all) and sporadic strikes on the Underground and National Rail (it is England after all). But at least we got to see our grandsons and took them to a performance of “Back to the Future” in the West End – a visually stunning show for all ages; don’t miss it if it comes to Sydney.

Bowls for Fun – As most of you will know, for some years now Gerry Ryman has been running a ‘Bowls for Fun’ programme for young ladies from Roseville College. It has become an integral part of the school’s annual physical activity schedule for girls in Year 10. Gerry has been ably assisted in this endeavour by Heather-Jane Parks, Bev Morrison and Lee Gardiner. By all reports, the girls love it and who knows what future champions might emerge after such expert tuition?

Here is a recent photo of the participants, taken in November by Suzi Litchfield (and used with her permission). Suzi is Head of Physical Development at Roseville College.

(Gerry is the altitude-challenged one in the middle of the back row.)

Not visible in the photo but now flying happily in the breeze in the background is the Women’s Division 2 Pennant Flag; perhaps that will provide added inspiration for the girls.

Garry Lowder

newsletter@lindfieldrollers.com.au

***

North Shore Bridge Club

We are fortunate at Lindfield Rollers to have the North Shore Bridge Club as tenants and co-users of our facilities, including (importantly) the bar! A number of our bowlers are already bridge players as well and the Bridge Club’s Fiona Lavery has asked me to extend an invitation to all of the Bowling Club’s members to join up for bridge as well. Don’t worry if you haven’t played bridge before this, as at the end of January the Bridge Club will be running lessons for beginners on Tuesday mornings. For more information, please see the flyer included below, or speak to Fiona when you are there playing bowls.

What’s been happening?

Well, quite a lot really, despite the Festive Season hiatuses. A very successful Christmas function was held at the club on Sunday, 11th of December, when a fine repast, with all the seasonal trimmings, was had by the 80 or so members and guests attending. Our sincere thanks go to Garth Aston and to Liz Hollister for all the hard work that went into organising and running the event.

The ever-so-sartorially elegant Garth Aston welcomes everyone to the function.

Listening intently to the Chairman; Bob even closed his eyes to aid his concentration!

As reported above by Lorraine Forster, our ladies held their own Christmas affair a few days earlier at the Northbridge Golf Club.

Roseville Shield – After a hiatus of three years due to Covid and extreme weather, the Roseville Shield took place at Lindfield Rollers on Saturday, 3 December. It was a great day of bowls played between 22 teams from across the Zone in absolutely perfect conditions, with the friendly rivalry and camaraderie bringing out the best of bowls in everyone. The format of the day was for two games of fours, each played over 21 ends. In a very close result, Manly emerged the winners over runners-up Lane Cove.

Winners are Grinners!
The Manly team consisted of M. Wall, K. Smith, P. Coulton and G. Lewis

Roseville Shield Runners-up
The Lane Cove team consisted of K. Mulhall, S. Smith, K. Mulhall and S. Hobson

It had proven very difficult to get other clubs to enter and three entrants withdrew at the last minute, including one at 8.30am on the day! Our “B” team graciously stepped into the gap to make up the numbers. Thanks go to Liz and Brian for managing the “in-club” component of the day so well. Of particular note was the raffle, which went very well and generated a profit of around $500.

Action at the Roseville Shield event

Roseville Shield - sending one down the line

Roseville Shield - both men and women competed, from a good mix of clubs.

Our club also hosted a very successful “friendly” match against Neutral Bay at Lindfield on Saturday, 19 November. There were 3 rinks of 2-bowl triples with a mixture of men and women. Lindfield won by an overall margin of 3 shots. We plan to continue with this arrangement into the future with Lindfield going to Neutral Bay on the next occasion.

Club Competitions

The club’s Mixed Pairs competition was won by Gary and Lorraine Forster, who defeated Ian Kimmorley and Susie Meares in a very tight match. Congratulations to the winners.

**Gary and Lorraine Forster** - winners of the Mixed Pairs competition for 2022

Mixed Pairs runners-up, **Susie Meares and Ian Kimmorley**

The Club Fours competition for 2022 has also been finalised, with Rob Garrity, Morris Sher, Barrie Jones and Peter Duffy defeating Lorraine Forster, Owen Holden, Ian Kimmorley and Phil Lewis.

The 2022 Handicap Triples competition was won by the team of Marlene Black, Bruce Edwards and Arnold Green, with the team of Adrian Meredith, Ronny Vilensky and Julie Dunn as runners-up.

Looking ahead …

The club’s Presentation Day was scheduled for Saturday, 17 December but unfortunately had to be cancelled because a number of the prize winners were unable to attend due to Covid isolation requirements and other commitments. The day has now been re-scheduled to take place directly after bowls on Saturday, 21 January. We will play bowls as normal, including the usual afternoon tea break, and then present the prizes soon after everyone has come into the clubhouse following their game.

The Representative Selectors Panel met on 16 November and determined that we should enter two sides in the 2023 Open Gender Pennants competition, which begins of February 25th and runs for ten weeks. We have requested one Grade 5 and one Grade 6 entry but are yet to hear whether our request has been approved. The selectors also resolved to implement some coaching measures in the lead-up to the Pennant season that commences on 25 February. The first two sessions were held on 10 & 17 December. Arrangements are also being made for trials against both Forestville RSL and Chatswood.

A Smile on Your Dial

When she saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she’d dye.
A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
Did you hear about the dyslexic man who walked into a bra?
Just read that 4,153,237 people got married last year. Not to cause any trouble but shouldn't that be an even number?

***

The schedule has been released for this year’s Bledisloe Cup.

Here’s how it will work:

At 6pm players will enter the field and line up either side of halfway. There will be a Welcome to Country and then they will take a knee for 1 minute.

After that there will be a minute’s silence for everybody who has died.

They will then sing the National Anthems.

They will then go to the middle of the ground where the All Blacks will perform the haka. After that players will go into their religious groups to sing and pay homage to their friends in the sky.

Atheists will go into their own group to talk about what they have done to combat climate change.

Both teams will then come together in the middle of the field and hold hands while putting rainbow tape on each other’s arms.

The Wallabies will be wearing their new strip designed by Lisa Wilkinson. It will have aboriginal artwork along with black, blue, white, red, pink and brown ribbons printed on the front of the jumper. The jumper will have a large Z on the front for the team’s new sponsor, clean energy billionaire Zali Steggall.

The Wallabies will be captained by Bill Smith as Joe Bloggs is still serving a 10-game suspension after it was discovered his great uncle made a feminist remark to a barmaid in 1965.

The game will also have 2 minute time-outs after a try is scored so mental coaches can enter the field and talk to the players who have just been scored against, to discuss their emotions.

Purple cards will also be used in the match for players to be sent from the field for 15 minutes if they say anything mean. The game should finish around 11.45pm.

As the stadium is powered by 2 windmills and rooftop solar panels, if there is no wind or sun in the 2 days prior to the game, it will be moved to an afternoon game starting at 12.30pm.

***

Could be worse …

A father passing by his son's bedroom noticed the room unusually clean and saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, 'Dad'. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands.

Dear, Dad.

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing to you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mum and you.

I've been finding real passion with Stacy. She is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing's, tattoos, her tight Motorcycle clothes, and because she is so much older than I am.

But it's not only the passion, Dad. She's pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods, and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.

In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so that Stacy can get better. She sure deserves it!

Don't worry Dad, I'm 15, and I know how to take care of myself. Someday, I'm sure we'll be back to visit so you can get to know your many grandchildren.

Love, your son, Josh

P.S .

Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Jason's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that's on the kitchen table. Call when it is safe for me to come home.

***

Hello, my name is Alice.

Recently I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. While waiting I noticed his diploma on the wall, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 30-odd years ago.
Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then?

Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought.
This balding, grey-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate.

After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park high school.
'Yes. Yes, I did.' he gleamed with pride.
When did you graduate?' I asked.
He answered, 'in 1975. Why do you ask?'
You were in my class!', I exclaimed.
He looked at me closely.

Then, that ugly, old, bald, wrinkled faced, fat-assed, grey-haired, decrepit
son-of-a-***** asked,

'Really? What did you teach?’

***

Paddy was tooling along the road one fine day on his brand new Triumph when the local policeman, a friend of his, pulled him over.

“What’s wrong, Seamus?” asked Paddy.

“Well, didn’t ya know, Paddy, that your wife fell off the bike about five miles back?”

“Ah, praise the Almighty!” Paddy replied with relief. “I thought I’d gone deaf!”

***

Finally:

Remember, a will is a dead giveaway.

Till next time …

January 2023 Newsletter