Well, it is almost twelve months since the new committee took over, doesn't time fly? During this time we have taken more than a few knocks along the way and sometimes it feels as if we have not had the support of the whole membership, but we have kept fighting and hopefully we are gradually achieving some of our aims and making a success of things as we forecasted.

Despite assurances that the green would be fit to hold the Sunday Winter Bowling competitions, this unfortunately is not the case and these have had to be cancelled. I think all bowlers will agree that the green this season has not been in the condition we would like. This in part was due the lack of autumn / winter work last year (some of which we inherited), combined with the adverse weather conditions. Although it is no consolation to our members, many other greens are far worse than ours.

In an effort to rectify the problem with the green we have sought advice from outside sources. As a result, a schedule of autumn / winter work has been prepared in consultation with the Green keeper and will be more extensive than in previous years, and also more costly. Hopefully by doing this work the green will be back to the standard we all expect.

The obvious downside is the cost of this extra work. It is expected to be in the region of £2000 and the club cannot afford this amount. The Committee has looked at ways of funding this amount and one suggestion was to make each bowling member pay a surcharge, of say £10 or £20. This would not please everyone but we all want a green worthy of our club, fit to play on and not to constantly receive criticism.

As an alternative to this it has been suggested that bowling members should pay the surcharge, or, as an alternative to a cash payment, give up a certain amount of their time on the weekend working parties.

It is intended to close the green on Friday 3 October 2003 for the whole winter.

The schedule of work will commence on the weekend of Saturday 4 - Sunday 5 October 2003 and the following weekends. A notice for willing workers will be displayed on the Club notice board.  This topic will also be open for discussion at the A.G.M.

We have also researched the possibility of installing a sprinkler system around the green, but this has proved