Bowls Tasmania Calendar of Events
Bowls Tasmania is pleased to release the State events calendar for the next 3 years. Bowls Tasmania recently formed a working party representing a cross section of the bowls community to help develop a calendar with a strong grass roots focus. With the introduction of the new Bowls Australia event, The Nationals, which will see most of Bowls Australia’s events grouped together in one big fortnight of bowls, this has allowed Bowls Tasmania to spread out our events.
The three-year rolling calendar has kept the calendar free of all state events for the for the first half of the season until January each year to allow regions plenty of time to play regional events. The new calendar also sees the Thursday and Saturday State Pennant finals pushed back to mid-April each year, allowing domestic pennant competitions to run further into the season
2020 will also see a big revamp of all Tasmanian State Championships and the introduction of some exciting new events. Bowls Tasmania is extremely proud to announce the introduction of a State Mixed Pairs event into our calendar in January and a State B Grade competition running alongside the Open Singles, Pairs and Fours in March. Both of these events are another step towards a strong focus on the grass roots bowlers of our sport.
The Gala Week, having previously been held in the first week in January each year, has now been moved to March each year. This move has been done based on feedback from host clubs each year who have expressed how difficult it is to host this event so early in the New Year with many volunteers still on holidays. This Gala Week in March will comprise the Open and B Grade Singles, Pairs and Fours, and the Disability Championships. This event will be hosted on the North West this season and will continue to rotate around each region each year. This will begin on the Saturday of the March long weekend each year and will run through to the following Friday.
The second Sunday in January each year will see a mini 4-day Gala Week that will host the State Open Triples, the new Mixed Pairs, Juniors and Bowling Arm Championships. The hope is that by having the Junior and Bowling Arm events together in January this will assist with double ups and allow these players to still be able to compete in any of the events on offer during the major Gala Week in March.
The State Senior Championships will continue to run as their own event in the third week in February each year. This also allows each region the opportunity to each host a major state event for the year; either the January mini Gala Week, the February Seniors, or the March major Gala Week.
The State Champion of Champion Singles event will be held with the final Junior SWC each year at the very end of the Bowls season. This will allow regions to host their regional event later in the season and therefore allowing clubs more time to complete their championship.
Bowls Tasmania is also very excited to announce the final new event on the calendar which is the Representative Challenge weekend in August each year. 2019 will see the introduction of a pilot program on a smaller scale with a challenge between the State Senior (over 60s) Side, against a State Development team. The State Development team will be filled with the 5 boys and 5 girls selected in the Tasmanian junior team for this years Nationals in October, along with 7 other men and women being looked at for future state representative opportunities, selected by our state selectors. It is envisaged that this year’s event will be used as a strong practice match for both our senior and development representative sides and an opportunity for our state selectors to see other players in competition. Bowls Tasmania is hoping to grow this event further next year with the introduction of a 40-60-year-old representative side and a fourth representative team possibly being the State Open side or a State ‘B’ Side. This years event between the Seniors and Development Teams will be held at the Kings Meadows Bowls Club on August 10th. More information will follow shortly.
