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The Newsroom!
COMING UP IN APRIL.
We have quite a busy April with various competitions being held at our club.
12th April - County Juniors Trials starting at 11.00am. This is an interesting event to watch as the players are all under 18, come from around the county and some are frightenedly good! Food, tea/coffee and the bar will be open.
13th April - 2024 Champion of Champions competition which was cancelled last September due to the weather! 10.30am start and refreshments will be available.
19th April - Easter Egg Hunt, from11.00am until 12.30pm. Children/grandchildren will be most welcome to search for the chocolate eggs kindly supplied by Magna Foods. Entrance is £1.00.
27th April - 2024 Wem Cup Finals, 2pm start. This is another competition that was cancelled last autumn.
28th April - Wrekin Cup Finals. This is an evening match and begins approximately 6.30pm. Again, the bar will be open for everyone.
TAKE A SEAT!
OSBC’s President, John Fannin, has very generously donated one of the garden seats that he builds (and sells), for a secret auction. The seat is hand-crafted with cast iron ends and is 1.2m long. The wooden seating slats have been treated with several coats of professional wood preservative. You can see that this seat would look beautiful in anyone’s garden, and the entire winning bid amount will go to the club, to help towards new stairs.
We're asking members to submit sealed bids for the seat. Your bid should include the amount that you would like to pay for the seat, and your name and address. Seal it in an envelope (labelled "bench bid") and drop it off at the club. Alternatively, you can post it to Old Shrewsbury Bowling Club, St. Julians Friars, Shrewsbury, SY1 1XR. Don’t include any money at this stage – if yours is the highest bid received by the closing date of the 30th of April, you will be contacted. The seat has a reserve price and, if this is not reached, then a raffle will be held after the 30th of April. For information, these seats usually retail for £150!
STAIRWAY(S) TO HEAVEN?
Income that's usually generated by hosting outside bowls competitions hasn't come in to the club due to the dreadful weather that got progressively worse as the season went on. At least two important competitions were cancelled at the last moment. Therefore, we need to try and top up the coffers during 2025, because there's some serious capital expenditure coming up.
The biggest project will be the replacement of the two sets of stairs that go up to the clubhouse. The inside of the club itself may be going through a seismic transformation but the stairs are in need of replacement, having taken a battering every time the Severn has breeched its banks and lapped halfway up the club. The first quote has come in at £3,300 per staircase so we need to step up the fundraising. You can initially help by attending social events but your ideas or suggestions for fundraising are also needed.
We have applied for a couple of grants to help. Unfortunately, an application made to McPhillips Community Grant at the start of the year, was rejected at the beginning of March. A second application to Severn Trent Community Fund was submitted at the end of February and a decision will be made by the 1st of May.
MEMBERSHIP FEES ARE NOW OVERDUE.
This is a reminder that the annual membership fee of the club is due. Remember, our insurance requires members to pay their fees before the season starts.
Sadly, our bank is now charging for cash/cheques deposits into our account, so the quickest and cheapest method for the club to receive payments (and for you to pay) is via bank transfer. The details are as follows: Account Name: Old Shrewsbury Bowling Club. Bank: Barclays Bank plc. Account number: 70676764. Sort Code: 20-77-85. It is very important that you use your surname as reference and let the Secretary know when you have made payment, by emailing lesley.osbc@btinternet.com (include any change of contact details too). Although bank transfer is preferable, cash and cheques will still be accepted. You will also be able to pay your membership fee in person at the AGM on the 2nd of February.
If you are an existing member, you will not need to complete a new 2025 membership form, but when you sign in at the AGM or Captain's meeting that follows, you'll be asked if any of your contact details have changed in the past 12 months. For those of you renewing your membership, keep your existing club card (please bring along to verify). If you are not re-joining in 2025 but have a card, please return it to the clubhouse or to any member so that it can be reallocated.
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
The number of volunteers who work tirelessly to keep the club going, is very, very small, with only a handful of members helping to make the club the thriving place it is today. On Monday, 17th March, there will be another cleaning session at the club. This time wellies and anyone with a power hose will be welcome as the plan is to clean the ground floor. Please bring a facial mask if you want as you know that the filth on the floor is not just silt from the river!! If the weather permits there will be work around the grounds to be done as well. Start time is 10am.
There's always so much to do to keep the place looking as good as it does, and to keep funds coming in - from maintenance of the building and grounds, gardening, organising events, helping on the bar - the list is endless. If you have any spare time that you can offer to your club, please email lesley.osbc@btinternet. It doesn't have to be a regular arrangement - just now and then will help enormously.
THAT SINKING FEELING.
We always think that there's going to be a year when OSBC doesn't get flooded over winter and are always sad when it happens. The Severn burst its banks on the 25th of November and, once the filthy water started to creep in, it made it to halfway across St. Julians Car Park in a matter of hours. A look at the walls in the downstairs part of the club when the flood receded, showed that, at the peak, there was about a foot of water in there. Luckily, volunteers had been working hard over the last month or so, taking away machinery, equipment and furniture to store in homes and sheds, so there was hardly anything left to damage. Now it's a case of getting rid of the dirty silt that's left, although a quick ice skate first is tempting!
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