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.

We (the Management Team) want to thank you all for supporting the club in these difficult times. We want you all to return to bowls as soon as we are open and you feel safe enough to venture out. We really appreciate that you might not feel ready just yet and that you are reluctant to pay fees up front with no immediate chance of bowling. If you do decide to wait, we will welcome you back to the club later in the year when things hopefully get back to normal. I have to express special thanks to the 68% of members who have offered financial support and have renewed their membership and to those members who have added a voluntary donation in addition to the fees. This means such a lot to the future of the club and gives us every hope of surviving the financial impact and in fact coming through this nightmare with all flags flying. If you are still undecided, you still have until the 14th February 2021 to pay your subscription and benefit from the 2021 discount. You will also be entitled to a substantial discount off of 2022 fees and could be included in a thank you draw in April if you top up your membership fee by £15.

Once again, the coronavirus has done its best to destroy bowls at Ilford despite such a promising start in September and October. We were hoping that when we came out of full lockdown on the 2nd December, we would be able to resume bowls with at least 6 players per rink. Unfortunately we came out of the fireplace and into the fire and we found ourselves in tier 2. If that were not bad enough, with Covid cases rising exponentially (don’t you just love that word?) we now find ourselves in Tier 3 with nowhere to go and no one to see!

After a spring and summer fighting to get the Club ready to reopen, here we are in November, back to square one again! Of course we are not alone. Indoor bowls nationwide has been suspended until at least the 2nd December. All we can do now is to sit and wait for the OK from the EIBA to allow us to open and be ready when it happens. It is such a shame because we made such a positive start to the season. Whilst some members did not feel comfortable returning to the club, we still managed to sign up 27 new members. You have to spare a thought for these new ladies and gents who were just getting to grips with the game of indoor bowls only to be stopped in their tracks by a microscopic invisible organism. We can assure you and our established members that we will reopen as soon as we possibly can and hopefully you will all be back and bowling before the end of the year.

With just a couple of days to go before we officially re-open, we have a few minutes to reflect how much we have achieved to get to this point.

Our main achievement has been the installation of our new playing surface but did that go smoothly? In preparation for the new carpet, we needed to assess the condition of the side and back boards. The car park side boards were seen to be rotten, mainly because water has been getting under the foundations for probably years. They all had to be replaced. Then we looked at the back boards and many of them were smashed probably due to Paco’s (and others’) overzealous firing. Again these were replaced by our own A-Team of volunteers at minimal expense.