CONDITIONS OF PLAY IN TASMANIA
There has been a lot of talk around the Conditions of Play for the Thursday and Saturday State Pennant Finals. Many of these questions are raised year after year and Bowls Tasmania hopes to make bowlers in Tasmania aware of the current predicament.
As per Bowls Tasmania’s Constitution, the State Body has 3 members, the three regions; Bowls South, Bowls North and Bowls North West. The Bowls Tasmania Board comprises of 6 elected directors (1 male and 1 female from each of the 3 regions of Tasmania), and may appoint 3 appointed directors to the Board. There must be a minimum of 1 appointed directed appointed to the Board to act as Treasurer. The Constitutional mandate around the makeup of the Bowls Tasmania Board ensures that each area of the state is equally represented.
Bowls Tasmania has tried on a number of occasions between 2017-2021 to work with the three regions to create one Conditions of Play for Pennant Competition in Tasmania. Bowls Tasmania does not have any preconceived ideas on what types of formats would be included in this document, it would start from scratch with the hope of bringing in the best points from each of the current regional Conditions of Play. One Conditions of Play would mean that the entire State would run their Pennant Competitions under the same format. There is no commitment on whether this would be 12 or 16 players to a rink or single gender or open gender midweek pennants. The document would be starting with a clean slate looking at what is best for Bowls across Tasmania.
The notion of One Conditions of Play for Tasmania was raised as recently as March 2021 by Bowls Tasmania at its Regional Consultative Committee meeting with Bowls Tasmania, Bowls South, Bowls North and Bowls North West representatives. On each and every occasion that this topic has been raised by the Bowls Tasmania Board at the RCC Meetings it has been voted against by the Regional Representatives. In March 2021 it was unanimously voted against for last time.
The three members of Bowls Tasmania (Bowls South, Bowls North and Bowls North West) have voted to keep their domestic pennant competitions under their current Conditions of Play and have instructed Bowls Tasmania to keep the Bowls Tasmania State Events Conditions of Play document as it currently reads. This allows for players who are eligible under their regional rules to be eligible for state finals (I.e. Open Gender Thursday’s) and with 12 players per side for all state finals Thursday and Saturday’s.
If any Club or Player feels that they are not happy with the current situation you must go through the correct channels and voice these concerns with your local Regional Authority. The Regional Representatives are the only ones able to vote for any change as far as this topic is concerned. Bowls Tasmania would welcome you to forward a copy of any of your correspondence directly to the Bowls Tasmania Board as well, so they are fully up to speed with the wishes of the bowlers in Tasmania. The contact information for everyone concerned is as follows.
- Bowls Tasmania: exec@bowlstasmania.com.au
- Bowls South: bowlsouth@bigpond.com
- Bowls North: ntbowls@bigpond.net.au
- Bowls North West: ceo@bowlsnorthwest.com.au
Bowls Tasmania is considering the future of State Pennant finals for 2021/22 and beyond if all Pennant competitions continue to run under such different formats across the State.
