Bowls tournament ready to roll

Proceedings will start at 9am on Monday with the official opening by Hastings Mayor, Cllr Alan Roberts, and Mark Gardiner, of main sponsor Croft Glass Ltd.

That will be followed by the preliminary round of The Brickwall Hotel men’s pairs at 9.30am and early rounds of the ladies’ and men’s singles, plus the open triples in the afternoon and early evening.

The action will continue every day until the finals of the various events on Saturday August 18. There will be cash prizes for the winners and runners-up, as well as trophies for the winners.

Once again there will be a separate consolation drawn pairs event next Friday afternoon for markers and competitors who have been knocked out of all events they have entered by the close of play on Thursday.

Entries are up in the ladies’ singles and ladies’ pairs compared with the successful centenary tournament last year, while numbers in the other events are similar to 2011. The tournament committee looks forward to meeting old friends from previous years and welcoming the many newcomers.

The tournament is once again indebted to Croft Glass Ltd, together with other sponsors The Brickwall Hotel, Quadron Services Ltd, Fibre Services Ltd and Gibbons Mannington & Phipps chartered accountants. A great deal is also owed to all the businesses that have advertised in the tournament programme.

The charity tournament, meanwhile, will be held on Sunday September 30 and entries for this popular event close on Wednesday August 29. Beneficiaries this year are St Michael’s Hospice and the local branch of the RNLI.

See this week’s Hastings Observer for the full article.