A big thank you to Wooli Bowling Club for hosting the Past Presidents Association State Friendship Carnival, held at Wooli, from February 24 to February 26.

This event ran over three days with 56 registered players, that is, fourteen teams of fun-loving competitive people. Participants came from The Hawksbury, Manning River, Newcastle, Bendemeer, Inverell, Armadale, Barraba, Clarence River, Grafton and of course Wooli.

There was so much excitement as we reconnected with players that we hadn’t been able to see for the past few years and there was the pleasure of meeting new players, playing in a Friendship Carnival for the first time.

The Carnival commenced on Friday afternoon with a “Spider”, where all the bowlers bowl to the jack at the same time and the bowl closest to the jack is the winner. This winner was Ron Crispin from the Wooli Club, and the first resting toucher of the carnival was Kevin James. Well done to these boys, who received a much-appreciated bottle of wine and a six pack of beer.

Wooli Bowling Club did a brilliant job of catering for all of these hungry bowlers each day and the food was absolutely delicious. Thank you to those wonderful ladies and men of Wooli Bowling Club for your time and much appreciated effort.

Among the people bowling, there were the two extremes of ages, which demonstrates that there is positively no barrier to age when it comes to bowls. The youngest bowling competitor was Chloe Zelvis from Red Rock who is 11 years old, and the oldest bowler was Frank Doyle from Foster, who is 92 years young. Both of these bowlers are equally passionate about their bowls and had a tremendous carnival.

Amongst all the joking, heckling and in general fun, there had to be a winning team, Terry Flannagan, Kevin Smith, Geoff Hatch and Tony Fatt from the Nepean River area. Congratulations to this team who were presented with their trophies by the Clarence River Past Presidents President, Col Milne. Also, congratulations to the runners up, Rose Wayland, Lynne Clancey, Graeme Walker and Loraine Fohmsbee who were from Belmont, Park Beach and Wooli.

There was a monster raffle with fourteen quality prizes to be won, featuring a set of bowls as the first prize. This much sought after prize was won by our youngest player, Chloe Zelvis from Red Rock. The second prize was a convection microwave oven, won by Robyn White from Bendemeer and the third prize, a picnic blanket and full picnic set went to Judy Bray. Congratulations to all of those lucky winners as well as the rest of the winners who are too many to mention individually.

This Friendship Carnival was a huge success and created excitement for the next Friendship Carnival which will be held at Taree, in September 2024. Once again, thank you to all the organisers, volunteers and especially Wooli Bowling Club who certainly catered for the players needs and made everyone feel so welcome.

Rhonda Kesby