Bowls Surrey Presentation 5 April
Bowls Surrey Presentation 5th April – the Way Forward
A Briefing Note given by David Macklin for the DBC Open Forum on 14th April 2023 of the main points of the meeting and what it means to us.
I attended the Bowls Surrey (BS) Presentation on 5th April at Donyngs, which covered a wide range of subjects:
- Proposed Bowls Surrey Structure - part amalgamation of SCBA and SCWBA
- Affiliation of Clubs and changes
- Safeguarding
- New online BS system for Rink Bookings
- Proposed ULEZ expansion to much of Surrey by 29th August
- BS Notes on all above will be issued in the next week, copies from me for those interested. Notes of the meeting now in fact available as an email.
Proposed Bowls Surrey Structure
The new Bowls Surrey website is now up and running online. We can advertise our Club Open Day on 29th April on the public part of the BS site and Ray has now actioned this. Now advertised on BS Website and their Facebook page.
Proposals are advanced to amalgamate the men's SCBA and the Ladies SCWBA, agree structures for committees that reflect ‘one authority’ for Surrey Bowls, but without losing the history. The 5 Areas in Surrey are retained.
Affiliation of Clubs and changes
The processes for affiliation are more comprehensive; and now include submission of personal entries for Surrey competitions, as well as the Club affiliation. The process now allows all clubs (with a login) to see the information on each club. The details include names of Captains, Match Secs, Club Sec, club contact and Safeguarding Person.
The BS Yearbook is not being published this year so access on computer is the only way to get information on other club’s personnel, e.g. for match queries.
Note that of the £3.50 entry fee for each competition, £1 goes to Surrey and the rest goes to BE. The BE affiliation fee has been £5 per person since 2010 and will increase to £7 in 2024.
Safeguarding
Our Safeguarding Person named in our affiliation to BS is Anne Mitchell. We are now required to let BE (Bowls England) know our named person. From 2025 it will be compulsory for the named person to be DBS checked and also become mandatory as a qualification of Club Affiliation.
Coaching: All Bowls Coaches will be required to attend a Safeguarding Course and be DBS (Disclosure Barring Service) checked by the end of 2024. New coaches are required to attend a Safeguarding course within 12 months of the date of certification.
New online BS system for rink bookings
This is an online rink booking service operated by BS and costs £50 for the first year and £25 thereafter. A total of 12 clubs have signed up and a demo was given of the system by John Tucker. The Horley and Cranleigh systems were seen online. The Horley one did not show competition or league details. The Cranleigh one did. You need to know what to ask for from the system.
The system enables players to put their name down for selection, confirm selected players and enable players to ‘Tick off’ online, eliminating the need to tick off manually at the club.
The system appears to be the same as the ‘Bowlr’ system that we have available on our website, if we were to sign up to the option.
I learnt that Ashtead are using the ‘Bowlr’ system by themselves just to process their ESL league fixtures for 2023.
Proposed ULEZ expansion on 29th August 2023
The Mayor of London is pushing to expand much of Surrey into the ULEZ on 29th August. If it goes ahead this will mean that petrol cars over about 15 years and diesel cars over about 6 years old will have to pay £12.50 to enter the zone. Registrations can be checked on the TFL website.
This really means that after this season no one will want to take an old car into the zone. This could have consequences for clubs in or near the zone boundaries.
Next year it will be important to check your car reg. is compliant and if not, to determine the route you propose to travel to avoid the zone and the charge.
There is an island zone at Chessington that appears to be a separate addition to the main zone, which may cause problems getting to the A3 and to South London clubs.
David Macklin, DBC Surrey Delegate
12th April 2023