Talking bowls with Simon Westby

BOWLS: I copped a bit of flak about the heavyweight column that appeared last week. One person described it as like reading Hansard. Believe me if you don't know what that is don't try to find out. So in an effort to revert to type, there will be no more shameless plugs for sponsors of the game.
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Website watch. www.thbc.com.au. I found this while reading a Bowls New Zealand website preview on the just completed 27th Trans Tasman bowling test. It is the Tweed Heads Bowls Club site, but the thing that attracted me was the advertisement for the "live" scoreboard for the tests that was updated every few minutes. Not pretty viewing after the Australians pretty much had the series wrapped up after two days play, but I digress. When prompted a scoreboard appeared. This was in a separate pop-up window so you did not have to stay on the one page to keep up-to-date, you could just do your usual surfing and bring the window up when you wanted. It scrolled down automatically, slow enough to read it as it went.
To update to the latest scores all you had to do was press the function 5 button and new batch of scores appeared. No frills or extras, just what was promised, up-to-date scores. The rest of the site had the usual promotions, well-priced meals, jackpots on the pokies and free movies along with an in-depth history of the Tweed Heads Bowls Club.
At present they are promoting World Lawn Bowls which is being described as the first real lawn bowls game for your computer. It comes in CD form to download on to your computer and can be purchased through the website. From using the free demonstration model they had on the site it didn't look too bad. I tried to track down the price of a beer but no luck, so I think a market research trip might be in the wind.
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The following article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald courtesy of columnist colleague Peter FitzSimons, who emailed that I could feel free to use the article along with offering his warm fraternal regards and the Wallabies to win.
"Gotta love this city. Last year, many of the folk who live around the Petersham Bowling Club successfully opposed a development application to knock down the clubhouse and replace it with a new-fangled one with a synthetic green on top, before building villa units on the rest of the space.
"Still, it was obvious that, in the long-term, the only way to protect the club - established for the community in the 1890s - was for the community of the 21st century to reconnect with it. Yes, they would have to take-up bowls themselves and boost a membership that had fallen to 28 older souls.
"And that, dear readers, is why, after briefly considering a nude bowling comp - before rejecting it on the grounds it would probably frighten the children - the Petersham Bowling Club will soon be hosting Street of Origin bowls on Friday evenings in February and March. It's going to be rough. It's going to be tough. It's going to be street against street, mate against mate, family against family! The hell with keeping up with the Joneses, they're going to beat them! Good on the lot of them."
It just goes to show that with a bit of lateral thinking there are ways to get people to have a try at this game and hopefully roll them into members.
Simon's email address simonwestby@hotmail.com