3 – 6 – 25
The following changes have been made to the 2025/26 Playing Programme after taking into consideration the submissions we received, the results of the survey, and consultation with the Programme Review Panel.
Also please note next season our development teams will now be from 0-8 years hence the Centre Singles competition will also be 0-8 Years.
.
Pre-Christmas Premier Interclub.
This season there will be a Premier Men’s 3×4 Pennants and a Premier Women’s 2×4 Pennants. One team per club. There will be 12 teams in the competition split into two sections of six. The teams will play five round robin games, then play semis and finals – 1v2 and 2v1, 3v4 and 4v3, 5v6 and 6v5. The winners of these games play off for their final placings. The two bottom teams will be relegated. The regulations around clubs entering combined teams will be eased slightly for our smaller clubs. Clubs will need to apply to Bowls Canterbury outlining their intentions. This needs to be forwarded to Bowls Canterbury at least by Monday 15 September to be sanctioned. Seeding from the 2024 Pre-Christmas Interclub will be used initially when teams enter these competitions.
The other teams in these competitions will play seven rounds as in the past, starting from Division 1 to 2 to 3 and so on.
Post Christmas Premier Interclub
We are introducing the Ann Wright Shield for women. This competition will be played using the same format as the Watson Shield. One team per club. This competition starts on Saturday 17 January.
Singles Open and 0-8 Years will be played on the Friday and Sunday of Show Weekend through to the semi finals
Centre Finals will be held for all Open competitions on Saturday 13 December.
The Over 60s Pairs Finals will be held Thursday 4 and Thursday 11 December
There will be no Interclub played when we are hosting the Super Sixes which are being played at Elmwood Park and Bowls Papanui.
The Burnside Stu Buttar Pairs are being played straight after Nationals, one week earlier than in the past.
Bowls3Five Bowls New Zealand will no longer host a national Bowls3Five competition. With only 10 clubs entering teams this season it has been decided that Bowls Canterbury will remove that competition from next season’s programme. Clubs can still have it in their programme, but it will no longer be a Centre event.
Any Combination teams A/C 2×4 Pennants and A/C Eights must have at least two women or two men in each team.
29 – 5 – 25
End of Season Dinner/Prizegiving
Thanks to all of those who helped with our recent end of season dinner. Also a big thank you to those who attended a most enjoyable evening which also fully celebrated an outstanding season for the club.
The Russell Brinsdon Volunteer of the Year trophy resulted in a tie on votes between Chris Littlewood and Phil Smith, both very deserved recipients for their respective outstanding volunteer contributions this season.
Congratulations to Tania, Paul, Liam and Nathan who received Gold Star Certificates for reaching 10 club titles, while special congratulations to Bev Morel for reaching her 40 club titles!!
Congratulations to Lance Pascoe and Mandy Boyd who received respective Life Members Awards for the season, based on results over the year, including at Centre and National events.
Noel’s Bowls Award (Women):
A Success Story. (From Bowls Canterbury)
Elmwood Park and St. Andrew’s College.
Each year, EPBC meets with school staff and Bowls Canterbury to discuss the programme offered to St Andrews students. The past season’s programme involved:
At the forum, Don Baker, greens’ superintendent , advised that Steve Street will be our greenkeeper for next season from the 1st September, details yet to be finalised.
Don will be assisting him. The club looks forward to Steve’s involvement. Club members will remember Steve from his excellent work for us earlier in the season.
Many thanks again to Kelvin for his great work this year.
.
29 – 4 – 25
It is with great regret that we received a letter of resignation, effective 31/05/2025. The club has reluctantly received his resignation. The club wishes to thank Kelvin for his outstanding work over the season.
He has always been very approachable, assiduous and professional in his duties, he will be very much missed.
The greens have been of a very high quality this year thanks to Kelvin and have been very much praised by visiting bowlers, club members, Bowls Canterbury and Bowls New Zealand.
Indeed, the club has been approached by Bowls Canterbury to hold the Super 6s tournament (both greens ) in February next year and has agreed to do so.
In its approach, Bowls Canterbury commented on our excellent greens and premises. Their approach is a credit to Kelvin’s work on the greens.
EP wishes Kelvin all the best for the future and we look forward to acknowledging Kelvin and his work at our dinner on May 17th.
In the meantime Don Baker, our greens superintendent , is involved on behalf of our executive into looking for a new greenkeeper next season.
Don will be looking after the greens from the 31st May until a new appointment is made.
.
14 – 4 – 25
Just in case you think Bev and Christine have recently got taller! 
8 – 4 – 25
Working on No 1. Early work in preparation for next season. Hard working lads supervised by Tim Sandrey???????
7 – 4 – 25
Wellington have achieved a remarkable three-peat through winning the 2025 National Intercentre.
This is a rare feat with the Canterbury being the last Centre to do so in 2004.
Interestingly, former Elmwood and Elmwood Park member Stephen Ditfort, was a member of the Canterbury team that notched up their three-peat and now finds himself in the same position as a member of the Wellington side.
.
1 – 4 – 25
The Monday Night Strugglers final night prize giving and celebration.
14 – 3 – 25
Clucking around our newest member!!!
28 – 2 – 25
Club captain Jamie Wagner introducing new sponsor Ben Harris to the members.
24 – 2 – 25
Monday Night Strugglers under the watchful eye of Bob Colthart.
.
20 – 1 – 25
Some interesting figures from Bowls Canterbury.
We thought these facts and figures might give a bit of an understanding of how difficult it can be finding greens.
47 clubs entered interclub post Christmas requiring 414 rinks.
It is great to have such a high number of entries, but it does put pressure on green space so a big thanks to all clubs and players for understanding the need to move some home games away from home greens.
On the first day of interclub EP had 13 rinks in use, a marvellous sight with two greens almost full.
.
.
Why bowls deserves respect as a bolter’s sport where upsets can prevail.
This is an article from The Press written by Tony Smith.
President Neil suggested it was worthy of a reprint. It’s a good read.
OPINION: The new year is just 10 days old but it is going to be hard to topple bowls bolter Matt Berry’s national singles championship win as the people’s choice sporting moment of 2025.
Berry – who had never won an Auckland centre title or represented his province – beat newly-selected Black Jack international Keanu Darby in a tense final on Thursday.
His victory underlines the magic of bowls – one of the few sports where a club battler can topple a world champion.
Golfers and tennis players can have their off-days, but could you imagine Lydia Ko losing to a Kiwi Espirito Santo amateur? Or Cameron Norrie dropping an Auckland Caro Bowl interclub match to a battler from Birkenhead? Would Luke the Nuke Littler, the latest teen darts sensation lose to a public bar punter? 180 to one, surely.
It’s boring when the outright favourite wins every time, but upsets happen in bowls as frequently as rain squalls scud across the Kiwi summer landscape.
Peter Bellis is a deadset bowls legend. The three-time world champion wrote a book which became the Bible of Kiwi bowlers.
Yet his team, including at least one fellow former New Zealand representative, got knocked off in the 2016 national fours quarterfinals by a side skipped by a redundant Buller coalminer living in a caravan at a Christchurch camping ground.
Lionel Shaw’s four made the final, but there was no storybook finish as their dream run ended in defeat.
Berry, however, grabbed the cake, and the cherry.
No-one was tipping the self-styled “bowls gypsy’’ to go all the way after he lost his first qualifying game.
But once he hit the business end, Berry proved unbeatable. His post-section conquests included two current Black Jacks, Finnbar McGuigan and Darby, and a 21-0 whitewash of a hapless Howick rival.
The Aucklander looked imperturbable as he was interviewed on the green after his 21-17 final win by television commentator John McBeth, yet he reckoned he wasn’t as calm on the inside as the reality of his upset victory set in.
Berry said he “always thought I had it in me’’ and had used affirmation and visualisations and dipped into Bellis’ book to guide him during his giantkilling run.
Matt Berry isn’t the first, and he won’t be the last, to confound the critics at a major bowls tournament.
It is not unusual to glance down the results charts and see some of the sport’s biggest names eliminated in qualifying or bowing out soon after.
That makes the sustained success of world champions like Bellis, Jo Edwards, Val Smith and Gary Lawson and the late, great Nick Unkovich and Millie Khan all the more remarkable.
Bowls deserves more credit from a Kiwi public who seem to dismiss any sport outside the Olympic Games orbit, games involving oval balls chased by 120kg behemoths or codes played in ends rather than overs.
Yet you could not get two more gripping contests than the men’s singles and women’s pairs bowls gold medal contests at Brown’s Bay on Thursday. Anyone following McBeth’s excellent Sky Sport commentary could see and feel the palpable tension.
Finals day also showed the changing face of bowls, which has come a long way from the sedate pastime indulged in by Sir Francis Drake on Plymouth Hoe when warned of the approaching Spanish Armada in 1588.
It’s no longer the preserve of the retiree, in fact it hasn’t been for ages.
Berry had to dig deep to beat a 15-year-old Selwyn College student, Liam Hill, in the singles semifinal. Darby, his grand final rival is 28, but has been playing since his grandfather took him to the Temuka bowls club for a roll-up at 12.
Henrietta Scott, 19, and Ashleigh Jeffcoat, 25, made the women’s pairs final – an event won by Jeffcoat when she was just 17. In the end they lost out to the extra experience of Olivia Bloomfield and Lisa Prideaux in a see-sawing contest.
Bowls may not be an aerobic sport, but the best bowlers have a deft touch which would be welcomed in an All Black first five-eighth and a mathematician’s grasp of equations and angles. They also have great powers of concentration and the stay-in-the-moment skills of meditation master.
Berry had to show nerves of steel to cope with the eddying emotions of going out to a 5-0 lead over Darby then seeing his Dunedin rival recover to wrest the advantage before closing the match out with some clinical deliveries in the final overs.
So bowlers deserve more wider respect. Plenty of Kiwis are darn good at it.
Lincoln University has a great sport-specific scholarship that Lawn Bowlers can apply for. The scholarship is a great opportunity, has great benefits and we highly recommend anyone that is thinking of studying at Lincoln University in Canterbury to apply. This scholarship is available to bowlers who are considered to be our up-and-coming national players. The Elite Scholarship provides up to $6,000 towards tuition fees or accommodation costs for the first year of study. Scholars are able to re-apply in subsequent years of study. In addition, the athletes also receive a comprehensive wraparound programme, which includes access to mental conditioning coaches, nutritionists, physiotherapists, and sports conditioning experts. This scholarship is also available for postgraduate students.
For more information, visit https://www.lincoln.ac.nz/…/lincoln-university-elite…/
or contact Erica: development@bowlscanterbury.co.nz
.
.
.
8 – 6 – 23
.
.
BE PROUD OF YOUR CLUB
Learn the laws of the game and if you want to succeed practise as often as you can
and include the rolling of the jack.
Be proud of your club and protect it from gossip.
If you disapprove of some action taken by your committee tell the committee, not the world.
Support your club’s revenue making activities – the benefits will come back to you.
