Congratulations to the MLS Sportsplex and Andy Caldwell of the Peterborough LBC for organizing an incredibly successful day of lawnbowls for a crew of 34 high school students from the Peterborough area. With decreasing membership across the country, and Peterborough’s beautiful new clubhouse getting closer and closer to completion, the MLS Sportsplex served as a perfect venue to introduce the large group to the game. I was on hand to tell the group about my bowls story, how I got into the game, making the National Team, playing internationally and my plans for the future in the game. The bus showed up at 10:30 am and after a quick introduction to the game the gang got right down to business. Split up into teams of 6 each student took turns discovering the game while their peers looked on with curiousity. It was great to hear the encouragement from those waiting for their turn, and all the kids had a good laugh at the occasional wrong bias or pineapple. The shift from goofing around at a weird new game to intense competition was amazing when Dan Milligan announced that Pizza was on the way, and the team who managed the most bowls within a set distance would get to line up first for their lunch. 3 ends later the team that got to eat first had racked up an impressive 28/36 bowls within 3m of the jack. After lunch it was awesome to see a group of 12 of the students rush back onto the greens to get some practice in before the next game Dan had in store.
The group was incredibly enthusiastic and many of them picked it up quite quickly. During my talk with the group I was amazed at the level of respect the group had. I remember being in school and how there were always those few kids in the class who were never paying attention and would test even the most experienced speaker. This group seemed genuinely interested with what we had to say and I hope that we tweaked their interest enough to give the game a chance in the coming season. It’s the hopes of MLS, Peterborough LBC and hopefully every bowler out there, that this day at MLS was exciting for the kids and will be enough to prompt other clubs to arrange similar outings with the co-operation of schools in their area. It is my understanding, that with help from Mario Battista that the kids will again be exposed to the game at their school playing short-mat and hopefully short mat will become a part of their phys-ed program.
Thanks to all those involved in making yesterday a great day and for those interested, photos of the day can be found at http://bit.ly/eKNTq4 and for more info on Mario Battista’s efforts with youth programs click http://bit.ly/fyZEgC Questions and Comments are incouraged!