Dear Club Secretary/Delegate
Firstly, our sincere apologies for the premature release of the Barkston Ash fixtures for the upcoming season, last week. To generate this season’s fixtures, to incorporate a full fixture calendar for all teams, has been challenging.
However, we have now arrived at a league programme that satisfies the Delegates wishes to have all teams playing competitive bowls on as many Saturdays as possible.
For Division one and two, there is no change to the League and Cup format of recent seasons, with both divisions having 10 teams.
Division three and four both have 8 teams and will play 14 league matches; it was virtually impossible to increase the number of league fixtures to 18 (as per the delegates wishes at the AGM) without immense issues and conflicts.
Therefore, to maximise the number of competitive matches played we have decided to change the format of the Jack Cook Cup.
The 16 teams from Division three and four will be drawn into 4 groups of 4 teams and play a round robin over 3 Saturdays in May, at neutral venues. The top 2 teams in each group will then qualify to play for the Jack Cook Cup and the bottom 2 teams in each group will enter the Jack Cook Supplementary Cup.
Divisional handicap will apply in all games and propose that the handicap is added to each card before the commencement of each game i.e. a Division four bowler playing a Division three bowler will start their game on 2 points. This way the maximum number of points a team can score is 168.
Hopefully, you are all in agreement with the format, which is being introduced, whether it is only for this season or for longer.
Lastly, a massive thank you to Jaki, Diane and Rob, it has taken many iterations of league and Cup fixtures and hours of checking and double checking to get to the fixture programme being presented....let's hope we've got it right ��
I look forward to seeing you at our March Delegate Meeting when the cup draws will be made.
Yours faithfully
Jon Lucas |
