Hope you are all staying safe and well during these difficult times. There are a number of items which the Ladies Executive wanted to update you on and it would be appreciated if you would please make your ladies aware of the following changes: Competitions: Bowls England remains confident that, thanks to the rollout of the vaccine, people will be out playing bowls this season. Bowls England is still planning a full competitive season including national competitions and national championships but they are working on a number of contingencies should there be a need to delay the start date. With this in mind, the Ladies Executive has decided that it would make sense to have the 4s and Senior 4s competitions start towards the end of June rather than the usual early May dates. Naturally this has altered the whole competition diary with the singles being the first competition to start in early May, followed by the pairs, triples, etc. The revised dates will be on the web within the next few days. The draw will remain unchanged - only the dates change. This initiative has also been taken up by a number of other counties. With the sudden and very sad passing of Alison Brooks, Alison Hammond has offered to stand in as the competitions contact for Zones 3&4 this season. Therefore, Alison will be the person you will need to contact to give your competition results for that zone. Handbook: It was agreed last October that we would put the Ladies Handbook contents on the web, alongside the men's but that we would also have a hard copy of the handbook. With this season still being uncertain, the Ladies Executive felt that it would be inadvisable to proceed with getting the handbook printed when there is still such uncertainty about the season. With this in mind, we will not be producing a full handbook this season but plan to produce a booklet containing all the competition draws and dates, along with all the competitor contact numbers. This will enable you to immediately see who you are playing and when without having to go into the web each time. There will be a nominal charge of £1 per copy for this booklet. County Events/Matches: Due to Covid 19, some of our events this season have had to be either cancelled or postponed and the first to be postponed is the Annual Church Service. We are still looking at holding this event but much later in the season. In addition, it has also been decided to postpone President's Day to later in the season. Both of these events will be firmed up as soon as possible and communications sent to clubs via email. Other events will be reviewed once further information has been sent out by the Government and Bowls England. Council meeting: Our next Council meeting is due to be held on Tuesday, 6th April and this will now be held via Zoom. With this in mind, please would you let me have as soon as possible the name of one person from your club who can access zoom and is able to attend the meeting. The meeting will start at 1.30 pm as usual. Please let me have the person's email address so that I can then send them the link to the zoom meeting. I look forward to hearing from you and in the meantime, if you have any questions at all about any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you
Jan Brooks
County Secretary (Ladies)
