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BALERNO BOWLING CLUB FUTURE OF CLUB ASSURED?

Happy New Year to my regular reader(s?) and all associated with Balerno Bowling Club! I wish you all that you would wish for yourselves in 2014.

Outdoor bowling is still in close season so those of us who don’t play indoors are ‘kicking our heels’ waiting for Opening Day. Social activities have been the main focus in the Club recently and our month end cabaret programme for 2014 is taking shape with tribute acts to Queen and Tina Turner featuring early in the New Year.

Thanks to all members and friends who took part in our successful Christmas Raffle with special thanks to Jacqui and Bobbie of the Juniper Salon and Sharon and Steve of Balerno Post Office for their kind donations. The land on which our Club and bowling green sit is leased from the Dalmeny Estate and our current lease is due to end in 2016. I am delighted to report that we got the best Christmas present possible when word came through that we are to be offered a 15/16 year extension..

So why the question mark on the title to this article? Well, anyone with experience of voluntary organisations will know that such organisations can only continue to exist if people are willing to provide the leadership and effort necessary to keep them going. We have been fortunate over the years to have such people but they are getting fewer and fewer. By the time you read this we’ll have held our Annual General Meeting (AGM). I am hopeful enough members will ‘step up to the plate’ to give us a full complement of Office Bearers and Committee members for this and successive years so that our 15/16 year extension will be needed! One person who did ‘step up to the plate’ is Tom (Tam) McDonald whose two year term as President ends at the AGM. It is fair to say that Tam had some reservations about taking on the Presidency due to his inexpeience in running meetings and public speaking. But he has worked tirelessly for the Club over the last two years – as he has for many years before – and I think he has surprised himself as well as many others in how well he has coped with the demands of the role.

Well done and thanks Tam! And just in case I’m deposed as the Club’s correspondent, thank you for taking the time and trouble for reading this and all my earlier missives.

TTFN! Charlie Husband OBE Past President