Woolston Park Bowling Club

Press, 11 December 1981, Page 21

Woolston Park Bowling Club

Club on the move

Tomorrow, the Mayor of Christchurch, Mr Hamish Hay, will open the Woolston Park Bowling Club’s new pavilion (pictured above), a pavilion which has a replacement value of $154,000. Yet it has cost the club just $87,000. How; it might be asked, can such miracles occur in these inflationary times? The answer is voluntary labour, or, to put it another way, a membership which was prepared to roll up its sleeves and achieve something for itself.

As Woolston Park’s president, Bert Ovens, said this week: “We are not a wealthy club and without strong, and practical, support from the membership (which totals 90 men and 44 women) we could not have got a new pavilion.” The 432 square metre building is a monument to many people. Various tradesmen, and handymen amateurs, have left their stamp, and others, some of whom took annual leave from their regular jobs, provided a willing band of labourers. There has been no dillydallying either. The old pavilion, which had served the club for 43 years and which in addition to showing its age was too cramped for the growing membership, was only demolished at the start of last winter. Woolston Park, which nestles in a corner of the park from which it draws its name, was established on the site of a former rubbish dump. This has presented problems with the greens over the years, although the greens — one full size and one smaller one — are now in first-class order. However, the sub-soil gave problems again when it came to laying the foundations and with this work being done in the wet months of June and July the difficulties were doubled. The enthusiasm of the workers, though, never waned. Another mystery, to stand alongside the one about how a. $154,000 building can be erected for $87,000, is when does Bryn Roberts sleep? Mr Roberts is a relatively new member of the club, but he has been the most industrious of the unpaid helpers, spending just about every day on the site, before he clocks in on his night job. However, Mr Roberts says

he has seldom been lonely. “Most days someone turns up to lend a hand and it’s amazing what can be done when people get involved in a project which is close to their hearts.” Mr Roberts need have no fears about being lonely in the future either — he is to be the club’s bar manager. The now completed pavilion includes all of the necessities, plus a few extras, of the modern sports club. The lounge is large, as it needs to be for a club which has a strong social side, there is a well-appointed bar, and the kitchen is big enough to sit the Waltons down for a meal.

Then there is an office, store room, committee room and secretary’s room, and the locker rooms, men's and women’s, are spacious, showers in the latter being one unusual inclusion for a bowling club. Woolston Park is a club which has known troubled times and that it can now look back and laugh a little at the difficult times is because of men like Jack Gillespie and Norm Wales, two stalwart members. Mr Wales has also been one of the club’s most successful players and he has featured in two of the five champion-of-champion titles that have gone its way. Mr Gillespie has featured more as an administrator and his worth in this role was realised earlier this year when he was elected to the executive of the Christchurch centre.

Mr Gillespie recalls that during one of his terms as president, around 1971, the club had just $6OO in the bank and this was the amount required to put in new pipes to run water from the mains supply in Silvester Street. “We were down to 33 members and a meeting was held to see if we should carry on but there was never much doubt that we would. The determination was there, but we said at the time that if the club was to grow, some toes may have to be stepped on and there would be no apologies,” said Mr Gillespie.

Woolston Park, or as it was known until three years ago, Woolston, started to run into problems in the late 1950 s when the newly-estab-lished Woolston W.M.C. set up a bowling section just a block away. Quite a few Woolston members made the shift “across the road” and the new club also fared better in the quest for newcomers to the sport. However, many of these defections have now come back to Woolston Park and the club is now in the happy position of having a waiting list of new members. At present it is interested mainly in juniors for it has one of the strongest junior sections of any club in town and they are its future. Yet although Woolston Park has yet to claim a place among the top men’s clubs in Christchurch, its women’s section has long been prominent in centre events and one of its women, Lorraine Carson, is, with two bars to her gold star, the most successful bowler in the history of the game in Canterbury. The influx of juniors into the club has come about through a link which was forged some eight years ago between the club and .the Linwood Rugby Club. It started when the two clubs got together to run housie in the nearby Woolston Tavern.

It was as a result of the housie that Woolston Park’s finances took on a healthier glow and a second benefit was the relationship which developed between the two clubs. Now a large percentage of the bowling club’s juniors are former Linwood rugby players; good players, too, like Terry Mitchell, Murray Le Compte and Royce King. Mitchell, of course, was an All Black and both Norm Wales, at hockey, and Bryn Roberts, as a wrestler, have represented New Zealand. This summer, Woolston Park is fielding three colts teams and three juniors teams in inter-club championships and it also has juniors in its top Three-fours team, which is staking a strong claim for promotion to division one next season.

With so many young bowlers. Woolston Park is clearly a club with a future. And now that it has good greens and a pavilion of which it can be rightfully proud, its well-being in the years ahead is doubly assured.