Most clubs want, and need to, develop further to attract new members and ensure that they have the best possible facilities and experience for their members.

The best advice for clubs is to hold a series of ‘beginners sessions’ for people to come along and try playing as well as getting to know your club and the current members. These could be badged as ‘Bowls for Health’ sessions. Some key advice is set out below but individual pages added with more specific advice in due course:

• Make sure you hold a series of sessions – people are more likely to join your club if they can come along a few times and get to know you and your club.
• An initial ‘open day’ can be useful and make use of the resources that will be circulated for the ‘Bowls’ Big Weekend’ (27-29 May in 2022). See the Bowls’ Big Weekend website at https://www.bowlsbigweekend.com/ where you can register your club. However, you should make arrangements for follow up sessions where beginners can come back and play. Make these free but ask people whether they want to join at the end of the programme.
• Advertise your open day or bowling sessions for beginners on local Facebook groups for your town/local area, as well as in the local press. Get it ‘out there’ as much as possible. If you have a successful open day then word of mouth will attract further people along to your beginners sessions.
• Ensure you have volunteers from your club to assist you and that you have sufficient sets of bowls.
• When you advertise your events stress first and foremost that you are laying on an activity that is extremely social and will help people make new friends and will also get people active and into the fresh air with some gentle exercise. The bowling is almost secondary.
• If you haven’t already, get someone in your club trained as a Level 1 coach.

One of our own clubs, Ormskirk Bowling Club, was extremely successful in recruiting new members in 2021 through taking part in the Bowls’ Big Weekend and holding subsequent taster sessions (31 new members in total). A case study of how they did it is attached below.

Pages will be developed and added under this tab to contain further more detailed advice for clubs on some of the most important areas of club development such as:

• Holding an open day and taster days
• Bowls for Health initiatives
• Publicity and promotion of your club
• Developing a website and social media for your club

The Lancashire CCGBA Development Officer is Ian Gill and he can be contacted on 07500 918 081 if you would like to discuss any development matters at your club or by email at lancsbowlsdevelopment@gmail.com.