April 2025 Newsletter
Chairman’s Corner
Roger Parks
In the previous newsletter I mentioned the challenges the Club is facing with rising costs and stagnant member numbers. I am pleased to report that there are two projects underway that will address those challenges and hopefully ensure the viability of the Club for many years to come.
Disposal of Property
Members who attended the recent meetings will be aware of the Club’s intention to dispose of some land to provide the cash to make significant improvement to facilities and a future investment income stream.
It is anticipated that the income from the sale will allow the Club to replace an existing grass green with a synthetic one as well as make improvements to the clubhouse. Maintaining the greens is the biggest expense the Club has and going to only one grass green will reduce this cost substantially.
The piece of land selected for sale is most of Green 2 and adjacent grass area on the western side.
The process of selling this land is quite complex as it requires a subdivision to be approved by Ku-ring-gai Council. The Club sits on six different titles and these need to be rationalised as part of the process. The consultants needed include a town planner, a surveyor, a lawyer and for the sale, a valuer and estate agent.
Before the property can be sold the club members must agree that the land is no longer a required core asset of the Club. Later they will need to give separate approval for the sale.
These processes will most likely take many months and there will be considerable cost.
At the end, however, the Club will be in a much better financial situation and members will enjoy much better facilities.
Bridge Club
Our friends at the Bridge Club have approached us about making improvements to the clubhouse to benefit both bowlers and bridge players. Also, they are seeking to secure their long-term future at East Lindfield and are considering investing some of their reserves in the club’s infrastructure.
The Bowling Club’s Board is very supportive of furthering its relationship with the Bridge Club and exploring what might be possible. An advisory group, comprising Ash Ayre, Peter Duffy, Ian Kimmorley, Susie Meares and myself, will be examining potential arrangements that might assist in securing the long-term futures of both organisations.
Jigsaws
Thanks to the generosity of Barrie and Lois Chambers, the club is now in possession of some thirty high quality jigsaws. They can be found in lockers closest to the stairs and members may borrow them at any time. We only ask that they be returned in due course.
Roger Parks
Chairman
Financial Update from the Club Treasurer
Ian Kimmorley
Three quarters of the financial year has flown by, and I have recently presented our results as at 31 March, 2025 to the Board.
Despite some areas of our Profit and Loss not being where we would like them to be, we continue to trade in a profitable manner. This is not always easy and takes your Board some careful management of the club’s income and expenses to ensure we are able to make a profit.
This has been evident recently when we moved, in the main, to having one paid staff member on duty during a bowls day. We have been very fortunate to have Roshani volunteering at the club on most Wednesdays. Roshani has been wonderful support, as have some members giving their time behind the bar.
Our trading result for the 9 months ended 31 March, 2025 is summarised as follows:
31/3/25 31/3/24
Total Revenue $267,066 $283,501
Total Expenses $251,647 $266,234
Net Profit $ 15,419 $ 17,267
You will note our net profit is a little behind same time last year, by $1,848 which has largely been influenced by:
Green Fees lower by $9,460, given our bowling numbers are down 464 for the nine months. This is due to a number of days lost to wet weather and some very humid days when we had quite small numbers attend bowls.
On the positive side, Bridge Club rental is up $5,167, Telstra Rental up $2,313 and Repairs and Maintenance is down $9,633
Our Balance Sheet remains in a very sound position.
Annual Membership Fees / Green Fees
During our Board meeting of 17 March, 2025, it was agreed the club will not make any changes to the Membership and Green Fees for the financial year commencing 1 July, 2025. This is a reflection on our current good trading and the potential positive outcome of our proposed land sale.
Bar Prices
Our bar prices have not been altered since 1 March, 2024 and since then the club has absorbed two excise duty increases for alcohol.
From 1 May, 2025 you will notice a small increase of $0.50 cents being applied to most drinks and an increase of $2.00 for a bottle of wine.
We believe the new prices will be quite competitive with other local clubs.
As always, if any member would like more details on the club’s financial accounts, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Ian Kimmorley
Treasurer
What’s Been Happening?
Presentation Day
Presentations to the 2024 competition winners took place on the 1st of February.
A photographic collage of all these clever people is on the club website and you can see it here.
Pennants
The 2025 Open Gender Pennants Season has come and gone, rather quickly it seems, given the short (six-week) duration of the competition. We had entered a team in Grade 5 and another in Grade 6.
In the Fives competition Harbord emerged as winners, with Neutral Bay second. Both of those clubs won four of their six matches, but Harbord finished marginally ahead on total points scored (38.5 vs 37.5). Lindfield and Belrose finished third and fourth, respectively, each winning two of their six matches, but with Lindfield pipping Belrose on points (23 vs 21).
Our Sixes also finished third after Newport (47.5 points from 5 wins and 1 loss) and Harbord 2 (43 points from 4 wins, 1 loss and 1 draw). Our Sixes had two wins, three losses, and drew with Harbord 2, for a total of 25 points. West Pymble, who struggled to be competitive, finished a distant fourth, with just 4.5 points from six losses.
Club Bowling Activities
The Fours competition has commenced, with the Triples to follow soon (single entries now open). Both of these competitions are scheduled to be completed by the end of June.
Susie Meares arranged a turnaround triples internal carnival for Wednesday, 26 March. This was a very successful event and was well received by members. Future repeats are likely.
Club Social Activities
On April 5th, after bowls, many of us enjoyed a sausage, freshly cooked by that expert barbecuer, Nick Wiener, assisted by Gary Forster. It was a popular initiative and will be repeated soon.
Know Your Fellow Bowler
Jeff Ware
Few people would argue that a good education can set you up for a successful life, especially when those critical adolescent years are spent at an excellent high school. For Jeff Ware it was Sydney Technical High School, located in Bexley, that set him solidly on the path to adulthood and a fulfilling professional career. Sydney Tech High is a single sex, selective school with a long list of high-achieving Old Boys, John Konrads, Reg Gasnier and Jeff Ware among them (disclosure: Yours Truly also went to Sydney Tech High, finishing nine years before Jeff started).
Jeff was born in Henty, NSW (about halfway between Wagga Wagga and Albury) in 1957. His dad was an officer with the Bank of NSW (Westpac) and the family moved about a lot in Jeff’s youth, including four years in Lautoka, Fiji. He went to six different schools before finally settling in at Sydney Tech High. As a young man Jeff attended Sydney University and later Moore Theological College, setting him up for a career of high school teaching and, from 1991 to 2021, a long stint as Chaplain at another fine educational institution – Barker College.
As a high school teacher Jeff spent time in western NSW, where, while teaching English and History in Griffith, he met and, in 1984, married Annette, who was teaching Home Science in Finley. Together they raised five children, all of them now in their thirties, and they have six grandchildren. Jeff lived in Hornsby for almost half of his life, handy for a Barker teacher, but he and Annette moved to Lindfield in 2022. Hornsby’s loss was our gain, as at the end of that year Jeff joined Lindfield Rollers and has been enjoying bowls for over two years, quickly establishing himself as one of our most promising younger bowlers. This is perhaps not surprising, as Jeff has long been a keen sportsman, playing golf, tennis, volleyball, cricket and rugby.
When it comes to cultural interests, Jeff is equally diversified, one might say eclectic. In music he likes jazz, country and classical, with Rodrigo’s guitar work, Concerto de Aranjuez, a particular favourite. His favourite movies are the Three Colours trilogy (Red, White and Blue) directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Back in the day he watched the TV series West Wing several times. For reading he prefers short novels, such as Claire Keegan’s highly acclaimed Small Things Like These (the movie version is currently showing at Roseville Cinema).
In his younger days, Jeff saw a lot of rural NSW and he maintains a love of the country life, especially the Southern Tablelands, including Canberra. Jeff Ware has much to be proud of, but he says it all adds up to “hanging in there for the long haul, in marriage, work and faith”. He acknowledges the positive influence of many people in his life, pointing in particular to Jock Black, his English teacher at high school. (I also had an outstanding English teacher at Sydney Tech High, perhaps a bit surprising for a school that so emphasised science and maths.)
When asked what advice Jeff would give to his 21-year-old self, his answer was simple: “Count your blessings!”
Good advice for all of us, I am sure.
Garry Lowder
Looking ahead …
The Roseville Shield is to be held on Saturday, 27 September to avoid both the October long weekend and the Region Fours which is now scheduled for the date that we have previously used for the Shield.
Our club has once again been invited to participate in Neutral Bay’s Peter Russell Trophy, which this year will be a two bowl triples competition with 3 x 15 end games to be played on Saturday, 14 June. We will enter a team.
A Smile on Your Dial
First, some pictures to contemplate:
Australia in a puddle!
Is this the Highway to Heaven?
The difference is marginal, to begin with, but ….
And now a little philosophy …
So, Aussies, Brits, Americans and Canadians all speak English, but there are some important differences …
ANGOSPHERE DIFFERENCES:
Aussies: Believe you should look out for your mates.
Brits: Believe that you should look out for those people who belong to your club.
Americans: Believe that people should look out for and take care of themselves.
Canadians: Believe that’s the government’s job.
Aussies: Dislike being mistaken for Pommies (Brits) when abroad.
Canadians: Are rather indignant about being mistaken for Americans when abroad.
Americans: Encourage being mistaken for Canadians when abroad.
Brits: Can’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else when abroad.
Canadians: Endure bitterly cold winters and are proud of it.
Brits: Endure oppressively wet and dreary winters and are proud of it.
Americans: Don’t have to do either and couldn’t care less.
Aussies: Don’t understand what inclement weather means.
Americans: Drink weak, pissy-tasting beer.
Canadians: Drink strong, pissy-tasting beer.
Brits: Drink warm, beery-tasting piss.
Aussies: Drink anything with alcohol in it.
Brits: Drink in proper pubs.
Americans: Drink in soulless bars with big TVs.
Canadians: Drink in places that look like proper British pubs from the outside but feel like soulless American bars inside.
Australians: Think none of this matters as long as the beer is served cold.
Americans: Seem to think that poverty and failure are morally suspect.
Canadians: Seem to believe that wealth and success are morally suspect.
Brits: Seem to believe that wealth, poverty, success, and failure are inherited.
Aussies: Seem to think that none of this matters after several beers.
Brits: Have produced many great comedians, celebrated by Canadians, ignored by Americans, and therefore not rich.
Aussies: Have produced comedians like Paul Hogan and Yahoo Serious.
Canadians: Have produced many great comedians such as John Candy, Martin Short, Jim Carrey, Dan Aykroyd.
Americans: Think that all these people are American!
Americans: Spend most of their lives glued to the idiot box.
Canadians: Don’t, but only because they can’t get more American channels.
Brits: Pay a tax just so they can watch 4 channels.
Aussies: Export all their crappy programs, which no one there watches, to Britain, where everybody loves them.
Americans: Will jabber on incessantly about football, baseball and basketball.
Brits: Will jabber on incessantly about cricket, soccer and rugby.
Canadians: Will jabber on incessantly about hockey, hockey and hockey
Aussies: Will jabber on incessantly about how they beat the Poms in every sport they played them in.
Aussies: Are extremely patriotic about their beer.
Americans: Are flag-waving, anthem-singing, and obsessively patriotic to the point of blindness.
Canadians: Can’t agree on the words to their anthem, in either language, when they can be bothered to sing them.
Brits: Do not sing at all but prefer a large brass band to perform the anthem.
Brits: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.
Australians: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.
Americans: Cross their southern border for cheap shopping, gas and liquor in a backwards country.
Canadians: Cross their southern border for cheap shopping, gas and liquor in a backwards country.
Brits: Are justifiably proud of the accomplishments of their past citizens.
Americans: Are justifiably proud of the accomplishments of their present citizens.
Canadians: Prattle on about how some of those great Americans were once Canadian.
Aussies: Waffle on about how some of their past citizens were once Outlaw Pommies, but none of that matters after several beers.
And then there’s this …
And one more on the impact of tariffs:
Your tariffs at work!
“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain
“Efficiency is doing things right.
Effectiveness is doing the right things.”
– Peter Drucker
