JUNIOR MANAGER’S REPORT FOR 2024
This season was affected by wet weather having to cancel a number of the Saturday morning sessions at short notice. The majority of the young bowlers do not have suitable wet weather clothing so it cannot be expected that they endure inclement conditions.
Near the beginning of the season several of the youngsters represented the county in the White Rose and Amy Rose inter county competitions gaining invaluable experience against established international and county bowlers. We had success in the county junior competitions with Tom Gilley winner of the boys under 18 singles. Matthew Yarnold, Zach Evans and Lucie Rankine-McIntosh also reaching finals but did not bringing home the winners spoils.
In the DYBA annual tournament Molly Trim was successful in winning the U12’s singles trophy, Zach and his partner won the pairs competition and Matthew was runner-up in the singles. Matthew and Zach have been regular members of the men’s club team in the Dorset league team and played outstandingly in the final of the County Cup recently.
Unfortunately this season the numbers attending on a Saturday morning have dropped to an average below 15 partly due to some of the older members taking “Saturday jobs” and the lack of new younger bowlers. Next season it is planned to have a recruit campaign using social media to attract youngsters and not just rely on the open day which can be affected by bad weather as it was last year.
After this years Club Finals Saturday several club members comment on how good it was to see the Junior Members bowling and how it quote “it gave the day a lift”. I would like to investigate the possibility of integrating the Astin Cup, which is the name for the juniors competition, into the Finals weekend in the future. A big thank you to the Assistant Youth Manager and the helpers who attend every week and without them the junior section would not function. Sid Steele (Youth Manager)