Chris Gray been tasked by our Committee with setting up and acting as Administrator for a new Club-wide WhatsApp Group.

Now, before you say, oh no, not another ***** WhatsApp group, let him explain!.

For a number of years, the men of our Club have had access to the ‘Berkhamsted BC Men’ group and last year I created a ‘BBC Men’s Captain Info’ group, specifically targeted at those men who participated in our competitive male matches.

However, what we do not have is a group for ALL of our members, regardless of sex, ability or even just our social members. The aim of this new WhatsApp Group is inform all Members, as the need arises to keep everyone up-to-date with all things concerning our Club on a regular basis.

Currently, our Club has some major plans to improve the parking capacity, which will include some reorganisation of our sheds. This will require a lot of assistance from our members, with a ‘working’ day taking place on Friday 17th February, starting at 9.30am. NB: It will not only be manual labour that is required on this and subsequent days !

This new WhatsApp Group will allow us to circulate events like this to all members in a quick and timely manner, before and once the season starts. And from late April, it can be used for all sorts of our bowls season, including forthcoming matches, late player call-ups due to absence, updates of results and pictures, to name just a few advantages of this new facility.

Now, a little bit of administration to make this WhatsApp Group a success

– No frivolity, please IE: No memes, GIFs, jokes (funny or rude !) etc
– No posting at unsociable times (nothing before 8am or after 10pm)
– Keep your posts brief and relevant to our Bowls Club, only
– The constant ‘pinging’ or vibration of a mobile can be really annoying ; Therefore, to keep the messages down to a minimum, after someone posts on the Group, can I ask our Members to refrain from ‘liking’ a post by putting a thumbs-up emoji or a short message like “Congratulations’ or “hard luck”.

I would encourage as many members as possible to join this new WhatsApp Group. You must have WhatsApp on your phone – if you haven’t then download it now! You can contact me directly and I can add you, or send me a Msg (WhatsApp, Text etc), or use the following link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/ChMPVk8pWYtEXVJNlVGos8 or, for those members more tech savvy, use the QR Code below!

Lastly, I/we do appreciate and recognise that some of our members either do not have a more modern smart mobile or are not that au fait with some of our current technology. Therefore, our Club will continue to post information on its Facebook site and endeavour to spread news via word of mouth and information posted on our notice boards.

For any more information, or to report any issues, please contact me, Chris Gray (07961 918353)

If you have WhatsApp already on your mobile device you can sign up using the QR code below:

LATEST NEWS ITEMS

1. NEW SEASON GUIDELINES

Date: Sat 24th April

We are delighted to say the new season is up and running ! We look forward to seeing you all over the next few weeks particularly if you were unable to attend last year. Needless to say we have guidelines and rules to adhere to as we come out of lockdown which our club has been putting in place over the winter months. Please help us to help you so we can all stay safe and enjoy a great season of bowls.

The season is mainly divided into two half’s following the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown. The first half is from April 24th to 21st June when rules regarding playing and socialising are in place. The second half is from June 21st to September 31st when all rules are expected to be lifted and things are ‘back to normal’ if things go well with the pandemic measures.

We will keep you posted of all developments via all our social media outlets so please keep checking our facebook and website pages for our latest information in this fluid period. In the meantime below is our own roadmap once again for you to read and familiarise yourself with, if you have any queries please speak to your club committee members who will be happy to help.

2021 Start Up Information

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2. OUR WEBSITE RE-LAUNCH

Date: Coming Soon

This unusual past year has given us the chance to modernise our webiste and keep ourselves at the forefront of providing good clear and attractive information to all users.

We have created a cleaner design using more imagery, consistent colour, better use of headings and less text to get over our message. We have also re categorised pages, changed titles and cleared dated information to aid better navigation.

Whilst some pages have seen little change others have been completely re designed or added as new. As the new year progresses we will maintain flexibility in adding further pages and archiving old pages if dated or unused.

The most significant changes are the addition of a rink booking page and match or event sign up sheets which have been created as a result of the pandemic restrictions. Our latest news items along with upcoming events will be available as soon as you land on the opening home page for impact and ease of use.

Our ultimate aim is provide a website that is user friendly for our members whilst delivering information any non member is seeking in an attractive and concise manor.

Your feedback on all our changes is very welcome especially if it helps us improve it even further.

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DIARY EVENTS

1. FREE PUBLIC TASTER SESSIONS

Date & Time: Sunday 2 May 10am to 5pm Venue: Green

‘Play a new Sport, play it with your friends & family, relax your mind, exercise your body, improve your wellbeing, bowl away that anxiety & stress, make new friends, many for life, enjoy all year socials, play in competitions … treat yourself to quality leisure time, play some bowls!’

OUR FREE PUBLIC TASTER details are:

1ST SESSION – 10.00 AM TO 12.00 NOON

2ND SESSION – 12.30PM TO 2.30PM

3RD SESSION – 3.00PM TO 5.00PM

HOW TO REGISTER:

Click Contact Us? and fill in the form telling us your preferred time. We will reply to you with an email confirming your booking.

NUMBERS PER SESSION:

At the moment we are intending to have a maximum of TWELVE people per taster session. We have four rinks with a maximum of three people being allocated to each rink along with a club member. All interest is on a first come first served basis.

WHAT YOU NEED TO BRING:

A pair of flat soled shoes like trainers are totally acceptable, refreshment, sanitiser and an open mind ! All equipment and coaching is provided totally FREE.

SAFETY:

In accordance with Government and Bowls England guidelines we have safety measures in place which include sanitisers, wipes, disposable gloves, signage and good practice at all times.

We look forward to seeing you and showing you what fun BOWLS is and what it can do for your wellbeing.

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Web site - Re-design: Progress update

The aim is to present a consistent, more modern image to our web-site than that that was introduced when the web-site was re-designed in 2013.

For the time being the Suffusion theme has been retained and pages are to be constructed using Elementor page builder and our own templates (see below for an example).

Image to the left has nothing to do with this text, but has reminded the Author of happier times in the Clubhouse!!

Placeholder for text to accompany the image to the left.

‘Inner Sections’ Block Structure: 2 columns – 33:66 split (Can be adjusted in the Structure part of the editing window)

The default text is the uploaded ITC Franklin Gothic Book font, size 16 pt, weight 700 from the dropdown menu in typography.

Default Margins are 2% of block dimension (auto)

Default Padding is 2% of block dimensions (auto)

Borders left in to make identification easier – remove via Advanced/Border dropdown item

All these settings can be adjusted in the Advanced section of the Editing window

Full width Section follows

This section is a single column section (i.e. full page width) in order to demonstrate that we can pick and vary different styles of block in a single page. It is important to check the text colour & typography dropdown options in the Stryle tab and the various options for styling (Margins, Padding, Border etc) from the Advanced dropdown tab in the editing windows.

There may be conflicts between some of the Elementor styling and setting options and those that are in-built to the Suffusion theme. Changes made in Elementor will by default override the host theme, with surprising and unexpected results – not all of which are good!!!

However being aware of this should prevent any heart attacks when viewing the displayed content!

Super Six Skittles – Start Delayed – Covid 19

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January 2021 opinion piece

It looks like happy scenes like this to the left are not going to be repeated in our Clubhouse for some time soon.

All we can hope is that everybody does their bit to get the virus transmission down by obeying the social interaction rules, even if/when they have received their vaccinations. The latter is not an individual’s magic passport to better times – the post author believes those times have to wait until nearly all of the adult population has been immunised.

Hopefully this will allow some form of Bowling to resume towards the end of April/early May.