Welcome back to all our members and a special welcome to our many new members. We hope you will have an enjoyable and Covid free season. We are not the biggest but we pride ourselves as being the friendliest club in the area and we want all our bowlers to feel wanted but more importantly to enjoy coming to IIBC, playing the game of indoor bowls and enjoying the banter and conversation in the lounge with fellow bowlers, friends and family. We have a well-stocked and reasonably priced bar and this year we have a new draught lager on sale at a very competitive price.

The adjacent school have been using our facilities since April for the exam season and they are due to vacate very soon thus giving us back access to the club which is restricted whilst the exams are on. Bob Hayter will be contacting you all very soon with a view to getting help taking up the protective floor boards. The boards were put down this year in record time and our thanks go to all those members who kindly helped all for the price of one of Bob’s special bacon rolls. When Bob contacts you, please step up and help if you can. Further information on this to follow.

We are fast approaching the end of the 2021-2022 season with only about 3 weeks to go. The last day of play will be on THURSDAY 14th April 2022 because the Friday is Good Friday and the club would have been closed anyway. All bowls and equipment in the lockers and changing rooms must be taken home by the 14th April as previously advised, if you need it for your outdoor club. The school is coming in early this year for the exam season so no one will be allowed in once the school commences occupation, not even Bob or the Directors. That is part of our agreement with them. If you do not need the contents of your locker, you can leave them at the club but at your own risk.

This Newsletter focuses on our MIXED GALA which is now only a few days away. This is traditionally the most important date in our season as we entertain 16 top teams from near and far including two from our own club. The teams will be split into two groups and will play a series of matches against each other with the winners of each group going through to the grand final. Not only will the winners and runners up receive a magnificent plastic trophy but also £200 in prize money for the winners and £100 for the runners up. The runners up from each group stage will also receive £25 each. All this thanks to the generosity of our sponsor for the day, Lexus Woodford. Even if you are not playing, please try to come along if only for an hour or so to cheer on the Ilford teams or your outside club if they have entered. In the past the standard of the bowls has been excellent and is well worth watching to see how ‘the big boys’ and girls’ really play when there is money at stake.

So far, despite Covid Omicron and all its other brothers and sisters, we have managed to stay open and complete our league and friendly fixtures to date. That said, many members are testing positive for Covid and are self-isolating so we must not drop our guard. PLEASE follow all the Covid rules well documented in previous issues and if offered and not already done, get your booster jabs as soon as they are offered. Yesterday we had our first Management Team Meeting since September so there was a lot to catch up on. There is a summary of what went on later in this Newsletter.

I apologise in advance if you find this Newsletter uncomfortable reading.

As many of you will know, I fell victim to Covid 19 whilst on a UK holiday in October. I was on holiday with Howard Brenner and Stuart and Marilyn Nieman and they too contracted Covid. In fact seven out of the eight of us tested positive. I am pleased to say that they are also recovering and have or will be returning to bowls later this month.

We are now only five weeks away from re-opening indoors at IIBC so slowly members will be thinking about playing indoors in the warm and dry. Covid permitting, we will offically open on the 20th September for free roll ups. If you want to bring along a friend or prospective member, please do but let Bob know as we might be able to provide some free coaching or advice. The bar will not be fully open so please bring a bottle of water so that you do not dehydrate. The league program will commence the following week commencing on Monday the 27th September. If you were in a team last year (or in 2019), please call your team captain to ensure you are included in the 21/22 squad. If you are ‘unattached’ and want to play, please let Bob Hayter know and he will try to find a team for you to play in. Only full members can play in the leagues so if you have not yet paid your 2021 fees, you need to do this now. Please email Bob or I and we will send you a Renewal Form. The fee for the rest of 2021 is just £45. There is a possiblity that we might be able to open on the 13th September but if so, we will email all members to advise them.

Whilst the majority of us have been out playing bowls outdoors and enjoying this wonderful summer weather, me included, life at IIBC has been carrying on in the background much the same although not at quite the same pace as before we closed for the summer. Most of the maintenance work has been completed and anything outstanding can should be finished now that the school have vacated. There is still a lot of high level cleaning and maintenance so the school have kindly left the floor boards down to protect our new green. One big job due to be carried out in August is the replacement of our security camera system. The new system should be completed by the time we reopen in September. Full details of the work we have done was detailed in the last Newsletter.

As we draw close to the end another action packed season of indoor bowls and reflect in the success of our teams in the County and National leagues, we take a moment to reflect on how things could have been had we had been shut down by a dreadful ‘bat fuelled’ pandemic… Well that should have been the headline statement but of course it is far from the truth. Our season was indeed decimated by Covid 19 and it’s nasty Kent, Brazillian and South African brothers. We managed but a few weeks of bowls in 2020 and none at all so far in 2021. Despite all our best efforts to prepare the club and make it Covid secure, those in the higher escalons of society and Government had other ideas and they took away our keys and told us all to go home and stare out of our windows for a year or so.

I’m looking out of my window, much as I have been doing for the past year, and looking at the beautiful blue sky and sunshine. My son and daughter in law have just sent me a cream tea for my birthday and life feels good, the first time since last March. At last I see and feel that the end of this pandemic is in sight. I know it is early days and there are plenty of obstacles yet to overcome but a third of the population have now had at least 1 jab, the treatments are getting better and MOST people are obeying the social distancing rules. Will things get worse now the kids are back at school? Probably but the seratonin is beggining to kick in and I reckon that we will be back in business in September.