Another stellar day of bowling at BLBC! Fourteen bowlers showed up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Saturday for the annual in-house singles tournament. This year’s format was fairly simple, everyone bowled three games to 15 points. When the dust settled, four bowlers had accumulated the best record for the day. Ann Gardiner, Shawn Roney, Howard Mackey, and Jim Corr, were ‘in it to win it’.

The four decided to finish their semi final matches on the same day even though they had to option of scheduling it another day. I suppose busy lives trumped feeling tired from a long day of bowls.

After the two semi final 18-point matches, Jim Corr and Shawn Roney advanced to the 21 point final game which was played on May 22nd. The game lasted nearly two hours. Jim Corr was off to a slow start, but steadily gained on Shawn. In the 27th end with the sun just about to set, Jim scored the winning point; 21 to 18 being the final score. Congratulations to everyone who participated in the tournament.

Filed under: Tournaments by Dave Rockhold, May 20, 2013

John Luster and Shawn Roney won the Men’s Pairs, Cathy Dinnean and Ann Gardiner placed third in the Women’s Pairs, and Nikki Schrager and Phil Grattan placed fourth (in the money) in the Mixed Pairs. In addition, Cathy, and Ann, along with Sarah Allday placed fifth in the Women’s Triples – a notable achievement given that two of them are still novices.

Congratulations, everyone!!

Filed under: Uncategorized by Dave Rockhold, May 13, 2013

The Board of the BLBC voted unanimously earlier this month to revive the Club’s Distinguished Service Award to honor Howard and Barbara Mackey, husband and wife team who have given twenty years of commitment to the Club in a wide range of activities. Barbara, who passed away last December, had served on the Board of the Club in various capacities over the years, had achieved national umpire status, and was an assiduous “social secretary,” working regularly to decorate the clubhouse and lay on a welcoming spread for many tournaments and club social activities. She was also an informal coach to new bowlers, especially, but by no means exclusively, to new women bowlers. Howard has served as President, has been greenskeeper, remains Inter-club Tournament Director organizing popular events like the Berkeley Jamboree and other tournaments on the PIMD calendar, and is one of the Club’s representatives on the PIMD Committee. He is also currently the Club’s Singles Champion! Club President Jim Corr presented the award to Howard at the PIMD Mixed Pairs Tournament held at the Club on May 10, 2013.

From all of us at Berkeley Lawn Bowling, a giant THANK YOU!

Filed under: Members, Special Events by Dave Rockhold,

What a fantastic day for the Berkeley Jamboree! Bowlers came to Berkeley last Saturday from lawn bowling clubs all over the bay area plus a sizable contingent from Leisure Town LBC. The Jamboree was organized by Howard Mackey with help from Susan Jamart, Cathy Dinnean, and Ann Gardiner. This is a unique tournament in that every attempt is made to see that each player plays with different team mates for each game.

Cash prizes are given to the individual bowler with the greatest number of points. This year, a lead from Leisure Town, Johanna Smith, took top honors. Everyone is a winner at the Jamboree – good bowling, lots of fun, and ice cream for everyone.

Berkeley LBC would like to thank those who attended. We would also like to extend a special note of thanks to Cris Benton who took a special series of aerial photographs from a 35 foot carbon fiber pole. The series offers a special view of the event. Please check out Cris’ slide show or Flicker set.

Cris is a brand new member of BLBC who is taking to the game like a duck to water. Welcome, Cris, and thank you for the wonderful pictures.

Filed under: Special Events, Tournaments by Dave Rockhold, April 23, 2013

Tiffany Burnoski, daughter of long-time member Tom, was killed in a tragic accident recently. Our heartfelt sympathy to the Burnoski family. Service for Tiffany will be on Tuesday, April 16th, 11:00 am at the Shiloh Church, 3295 School St., Oakland, CA (http://www.shilohchurch.com/ ).

Filed under: Uncategorized by Dave Rockhold, April 12, 2013

The 2013 PIMD Men’s Championship Singles was held April 6-7 at the San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club in Golden Gate Park and a number of Berkeley bowlers acquitted themselves well. With a field of 24 bowlers, from across Northern California, competition was strong. Jim Corr came third in the Championship Flight, losing out to Jon Yee (overall winner) and John Hickson (Runner Up), both of Palo Alto LBC. Phil Grattan won the D Flight, and Sean Roney reached the Championship Flight, composed of the top eight bowlers after the first day’s round of games. A copy of the full results from Day 2 can be found here.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Dave Rockhold, April 9, 2013

Rossmoor LBC was the host for this year’s Opening Day. All three greens were busy as 120 bowlers from PIMD participated in two 12-end triples matches. The greens were in tip top shape and Rossmoor provided lots of tasty snacks all day long.

It was a special day as Woody Ogden was inducted into the Lawn Bowling Hall of Fame. Woody has been an important part of Berkeley’s history and has served at total of 99 years of service to lawn bowling (given one year’s credit for each position he filled).

Filed under: Uncategorized by Dave Rockhold, March 18, 2013

Must have been the beautiful morning, and everyone relaxing after the holidays. We had 20 bowlers on the green this morning!! That was 14 regular full-time members, Harry the annual guest, and five who came for a free lesson. There were four rinks in use, and lots of laughing and pleasant bowling going on all morning. Never one bad moment.

Among the learners was Ben, who will turn 13 in a few days. He stopped by the club Friday afternoon, talked to some of us about how to get to play, then came this morning with his mom – who was also an enthusiastic and competent learner. Ray gave them the basic lesson, then Howard came and joined them for their first game. By the time they were done, both boy and mom were putting bowls in there, and Ben was already starting to skip – telling his partner which way to come, etc. Annie and I were watching closely, and agree that we’ve got a prodigy in hand! I hope you get to see them when they come back.

First time bowler Ben holds the point!

Then a young couple arrived – after 12, actually – but we did NOT turn them away! – we invited them in, they watched till our games were done, then Howard and I gave them their first, short lesson, with Susan and Annie and Millard watching. They enjoyed it very much, and we made a date for them to come again next Wednesday morning for a full lesson.

The last learner was Chris, a tall 40-ish guy who was there for his third time, so you may have met him. He and Harry played all morning. Very nice person!

Cathy

Filed under: Uncategorized by Dave Rockhold, January 28, 2013

BLBC members were saddened to hear of the passing of Barbara Mackey, one of the club’s longest-serving members, on November 30, 2012.
Barbara was an accomplished bowler, who won many tournaments over the years. She joined the Club together with her husband of 62 years, Howard Mackey, our Inter-club Tournament Director, whom she often assisted in setting up tournaments and making the clubhouse a welcoming venue for visiting bowlers. Since joining in 1993, she served the Club in a number of capacities, including secretary of the Board for several years and most recently a second term as a Director at the time of her passing. Her extensive knowledge of the history of the Club made her a walking archive and an invaluable source to new members and new Board Directors. Barbara had also qualified as an official umpire for the USLBA, a task that requires a rigorous test and an in-depth knowledge of the Rules of the Sport. She was ready to provide advice to all on the more intricate aspects of the game and kept us on our toes if we strayed from the rules, especially those governing good etiquette on the green. We all appreciated the efforts she put into keeping the clubhouse well stocked and in good shape. In her spare time she pursued painting and was an active member of a community art group. She will be missed.

Filed under: Members by Dave Rockhold, December 4, 2012

Berkeley LBC members Jim Corr, Ann Gardiner, and Shawn Roney took first place in the 2012 Ed Arnold Tournament held at Palo Alto LBC on November 3.
The “Ed Arnold” is a special event held annually in Palo Alto in honor of a former long-time member of that club who was active not only in lawn bowls but also in promoting youth sports in his home town of nearby Burlingame. It has some unique features in that it is not only a “mixed triples”—every team of three has to have a member of both genders—but also, over the 12 ends of each match the team members rotate their positions so that each plays as lead, vice, and skip for four ends. This places a premium on “all round” bowlers who know the requirements of the different positions.
A very popular tournament, this year saw, as usual, a strong field of 16 teams from across the Bay Area. Only two teams won all three of their matches over the course of the day: the Berkeley trio and the team of Rod and Rita Arriaga and Norm Tiernan from San Francisco. As announced at the outset by tournament director, Bud Birkenseer, the winner would be decided by a one-end “sudden death” playoff, with each player having only two bowls instead of the usual three. In a short but tense culmination, Jim, Ann, and Shawn took that final point and first place.
“I think we all bowled well as a team,” said Jim after the match, “but I would single out a couple of key moments that made a big difference. First, in our second match, Ann, playing as skip at the time, came in with her last bowl on two successive ends to take the point, in each case turning what would have been a five-point deficit into a one point gain. Then, in the critical final playoff, both Ann and Shawn laid a bowl less than a foot from the jack, with good back bowls, putting the opposing skip under tremendous pressure. The result was that I didn’t even have to use my last bowl.”
Congratulations to all and special plaudits to Ann and Shawn who have shown that they are more than ready to leave their “novice “ status behind and enter the ranks of “veteran” lawn bowlers!

Filed under: Members, Special Events, Tournaments by Dave Rockhold, November 8, 2012