November 25, 2009

Sherro,

I had previously raised the issue of the corporate bowlers fee, however it did not get a response as good as Pat's letter has.

Bowls WA is quite correctly trying to determine the exact number of participants in our sport as this will have a significant impact on sponsorship opportunities plus DSR funding.

However, I do not believe you need to charge a fee to count people. It is possible for clubs to count the number of corporate/community bowlers without charging a fee.

Also, I believe that clubs will not charge this fee to corporate bowlers as this activity is a wonderful cash cow that helps pay the bills. Therefore if clubs pay the fee themselves a "fudge factor" will creep in and thus defeat the entire purpose of the exercise.

We should also consider that this recommendation came from the Bowls WA Council and was endorsed by the Bowls WA Executive, (see previous minutes on the website), and the council is made up of club/region/league representatives drawn from each club's delegate.
Delegates should have been taking this issue back to their club for many months.

We (the bowling community) are our own worst enemy on occasions as we are apathetic towards Bowls WA and most officials (about 99%) are elected unopposed. In short we get what we deserve.

Having said all that I do not in any way support the proposed levy and strongly urge all bowlers to speak to their clubs and have this stopped.

John Hannah