The bowls New Zealand roadshow rolled into town the other day with an invitation for local clubs to become a partner and help grow the number of players in the sport.
During his presentation, Bowls NZ chief executive Kerry Clark came up with some interesting figures.
There are now more casual players (totalling about 55,000) to affiliated club members (34,648 last year) - the cross-over occurring in 2006. In 2003 there were nearly 45,000 affiliated members and 15,000 casual players.
Last year 50 per cent of clubs in the country lost money - some of them down to a membership of 40 or less.
Australia, the biggest playing country, has 259,000 registered players and 1.1 million playing casually, thanks to the success of barefoot bowls. The number of competitive bowlers worldwide has fallen from 1.1 million to 650,000.
So the sport, not just in New Zealand, is battling a dwindling club membership.
Bowls NZ is rightly worried, and wants to have strong, sustainable clubs to grow the sport.
Its main message was: "Most clubs tend to operate in the here and now - the upcoming season - and do not consider how the club may attract participants for the future."
For many attending, the presentation was a bit of a letdown. The messages were recycled - strong leadership, be prepared to change, branding, promotion, programme flexibility - and the theme had transformed from One Bowls: One Vision to Partnership to Grow Participation.
The audience was looking for new, practical solutions to hitch up the sport but they were few and far between. They wondered about the value from Bowls NZ of becoming a Club Partner when they can do it themselves.
Most clubs are full of retired business people; they just need to be rounded up, energised and encouraged to lend their skills and experience to running a progressive, professional club.
The greatest value, I see, is for neighbouring Tauranga clubs to band together, swap ideas and co-ordinate their programmes so they are not competing but making every endeavour to promote the sport.
Interestingly, Bowls NZ wants clubs to push the Mates In Bowls brand. But local clubs already have successful business house competitions, where a lot of the casual play is coming from.
For the sake of Tauranga bowls, wouldn't it be better to liaise and make sure the business house is on different days? The clubs can encourage the casual players to go to each other's competition and give them more opportunity to play. Then maybe they might decide to join a club.
One of the biggest issues in bowls at the moment is how to convert the casual players into club members, and thus grow the official participation numbers.
Even if the constitution needs changing, it seems to me you create a casual membership for a lower fee and encourage those (working) players, to make general use of the club and bar.
Encourage them to come not just on the business house evening but any time they like - to practice with their mates, join an organised afternoon roll-up or a half-day weekend the club has organised.
And no doubt the clubs will have coaches and members on hand to pass on tips and make them feel comfortable and their bowling even more enjoyable.
Certainly, clubs have to be flexible and organise more "fun" weekend play for the 80-90 per cent of bowlers who are not rushing off to centre or national events.
Last week I mentioned clubs are thinking about promoting new events. Tauranga South did that last weekend. The club held the ASURE Macy's Motor Inn open fours, of 32 teams, where the winners of each round kept playing the winners and the losers kept playing the losers.
For many of the players it was a different, interesting format and everyone enjoyed themselves. Every team won some money, even the one with no wins, and the interest for all players was maintained right to the end.
Teams came from the Mitcham club in Australia, Waikato, Rotorua and Western Bay, and the last two standing unbeaten were Gate Pa's Robbie Aitken, Mark Hendry, Arthur Peevor, Bob Philp, and Tauranga South's Graham Skellern, Derek Dean, Ian Hawke and Ben Thurston. The South team snuck in on the last end by one shot to win the tournament and the top prizemoney.