Club History
Founded in 1989
Founded in 1989, Stokenham Short Mat Bowling Club soon gathered an enthusiastic following and centred on Stokenham Parish Hall. It was not too long before there were sufficient members to acquire two playing mats and all the necessary support equipment. Since then, improvements have been made to the floor and lighting which has resulted in excellent playing conditions. This is not always to the Club's advantage as visiting teams soon adapted to our home condition.
2014: Club's 25th Anniversary
To celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2014 one of the Club's original members Peter Greening produced a brief history wherein it stated seven of the original members were still with the Club.
May 2015: Lottery Bid
Over time the Club found the need to engage in some fund raising events which proved to be highly successful and in 2015 were delighted to be awarded a Sports Lottery Grant that enabled them to replace the much used hand driven Mat Winder for an Electro Self Winding Machine.
September 2015
With the formation of the new Committee in April 2015 the Club held a Rules, Roles and Tactics session taken by John Cadman - the new Secretary. This was much appreciated by our newer members and some existing members alike. With league matches starting the following week, the Club marked the start of the winter season with a social get together with wine and nibbles. Sixteen members were present and agreed that this should be an annual event.
April 2016: Annual Dinner
25 members and friends attended the Annual Dinner at Thurlestone Golf Club where the secretary presented the trophies to the winners of the in house competitions making reference to the trophy donors as he did so. At the end of the evening appreciation was shown to the secretary and match / competition secretary - Peter and Sally Greening who were presented with a silver salver in recognition of their many years of service to the Club.
2008 and includes 4 of our original members
April 2016: 27th Annual General Meeting
At the AGM David Sidwell was re-elected Chairman, David Alworth Treasurer and Brenda Winter Vice Chair. John Cadman was elected Club Secretary and Anne Sidwell Competition Secretary. Peter Marsh and Ann Cadman were also re-elected as committee members.
In recognition of their contribution to the Club, Peter and Sally Greening were awarded Honorary Life Membership. Congratulations to them both.
October 2016
Today the Club has 34 members the majority of whom are keen active bowlers with sufficient enthusiasm to enable the fielding of two teams in the local league in addition to playing a number of friendly matches, knock out competitions and the arranging of numerous club competitions. Keen competition in a friendly sociable atmosphere has continued to be one of the main objectives of the Club and the purely social side is not neglected with the Annual Dinner and Lavis Cup Party as well as other fun events.
The Club continues to progress ...
This year the Club has gained some enthusiastic new members some of whom have never played the game before and this coming winter will be playing in one of the teams! As one was overheard to say ...
"One of the joys of finding the Jack!"