An increased emphasis on attracting new bowlers and endeavouring to take the sport through to the next stage is showing promising early signs in Taranaki.

This year, Bowls Taranaki has formulated a new sub-committee, titled Towards 2020 – or in short T20, which is a play on the abridged form of cricket. The objective of the group is to change bowls in Taranaki by 2020 so that it is best prepared to not only survive, but hopefully also prosper.

“It is in some respects an extension of the work that the Bowls New Zealand CDO for our region, Keith Slight, has been doing,” said Taranaki chairman Brien Bennett QSM. “But one man cannot cover the area that he currently does.”

Bennett said everything is up for review. “We have seen significant societal changes in the last 40 years and its impact on bowls has been drastic. We used to have 5,000 registered players in a province with a population of 100,000. Our playing numbers are now down to 1,400.”

With the reduction in playing numbers the whole structure of the sport needs to be reviewed. The profile of bowls as a sport has diminished as the numbers have reduced and the membership has aged.

Taranaki’s long-standing Open Fours – the men’s 113th edition gets underway on January 15, 2018, where 156 teams will still compete over 25 ends in each match for a week – suffered a somewhat surprising loss of sponsorship from the local TSB bank this year. “TSB have been tremendous sponsors for 30 years, but they thought the demographics of our event were different from those that they now wish to target.”

While adequate funding has been secured for the time-honoured event to ensure it will remain highly successful, it was a timely reminder of the need to “reinvent ourselves”, Bennett said.

Among the early actions the T20 committee has instituted is a closer alliance between the Board and clubs. “I’m sure that it is a similar tune around the rest of the country, and across all sports – the clubs believe that the parent body is out-of-touch and offering little more than running centre events.”

All Taranaki clubs are now aligned with board members, regular dialogue has been set up and full reviews taken place. The uptake had been mostly positive, even if some clubs were initially dragging their heels and a little suspicious.

“We are not prepared to sit back any longer and see clubs fight the tough battle alone. Without clubs, we don’t have a centre. Bowls has always been an important part of the Taranaki fabric and it’s our job to ensure that continues.”

Membership is of course a constant problem and this has been a major point of focus. Last year, Taranaki recruited 38 new bowlers. “We’ve worked with clubs and suggested various ways of making recruitment a bit more successful. We have actually set a target of 100 first-year players for this season. It is ambitious, but we have already passed the 70 mark.”

These new bowlers will hold critical information, in terms of the other vital piece of the membership puzzle – retention. In recognition of the surge in beginners, Taranaki will for the first time host a first-year player’s tournament with full centre honours, except being a tick towards the gold star award. “It’s something that will hopefully offer encouragement and engagement. We can all sit back, yearn for the old days and hope, or we can sample, try and encourage,” Bennett concluded.