Nailsea Bowls Club will be throwing open their doors on May 26th for the annual Big Bowls Weekend as they continue to grow their membership numbers.
The Somerset club, based on Mizzymead Rise, Nailsea, will be running an open day tomorrow, Sunday May 26th, with bowls taster sessions on offer for those looking to give the sport a try.
It is a method that is tried and tested, with the club seeing an influx of new players post-Covid after numbers began to dwindle to worrying levels before the pandemic.
Club Chairman Duncan Edler said: “We have six rinks so can get everyone playing, it’s a lot of fun on the day, and if people are interested in doing more, we run taster and coaching sessions for three more weeks afterwards.
“We will have 30 volunteers showing people what to do and it’s a fun day.
“We have been running the weekend since the first one in 2021, we do quite a lot of social media advertising and in previous years we have had about 40 people turning up to try it out.
“About 50% of our current membership has been recruited from the Bowls Big Weekend, so we have seen a tremendous impact.
“The membership reduced in number prior to lockdown and if we kept going on that route, the club would not have survived.
“Bowls' Big Weekend has been a major part of our growth which has been very successful.”
Bowls Big Weekend, which runs from May 24th – 27th, will see bowls clubs up and down the country put on open days and free sessions in a bid to get more people playing the highly accessible sport.
Nailsea Ladies captain Janet Hobson is proof of the impact the weekend can have, after first picking up a bowl at the club’s event three years ago.
She said: “I would always encourage anybody to have a go. I joined three years ago, I had never bowled before.
“My husband and I were new to the area, didn’t know anybody else at all, and we thought this was something we fancied a go at and haven’t looked back.
“There’s something for everybody, regardless of age, ability, gender. It’s a very sociable sport.
“When I first joined, the ladies club was really beginning to struggle for numbers, but those numbers have gone up by almost double and we are putting great teams out every week.”
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