Garndiffaith Ladies Bowls Club - Disability Sport Wales

Club Directory

Club Name:

Garndiffaith Ladies Bowls Club

Activities:

Bowls

Membership:

Deaf/Hard of Hearing, Learning Disability, Physical Disability (ambulant), Visually Impaired

Club Address:

Bowls Pavilion

Joan Targett 01495 772173

History

The village of Garndiffaith has had a bowling club since 1926, but for sixty years it was, as were many other bowling clubs, for men only. But in November 1986 a meeting was held at Garndiffaith and the object of the meeting was to form a Ladies Bowls Club, the chairman of the men's club Mr Fred Carey conducted the meeting and he was assisted by Councillor G Miles President of the men's club. The meeting was attended by quite a number of ladies who were interested in forming a Ladies Bowls club, also a number of men's club members were present. Some of the item's discussed were, use of the clubhouse, club and green fees, rules of the game, correct footwear, club badges etc.

Any lady wishing to join the club at that time were required to pay club fees of £2.00, this enabled them to have full use of all the pavilion facilities, in addition they had to pay green fees which at that time were £2.90p for pensioners and anyone unemployed, the full price for green fees were £5.80p - this entitled members to have use of any council bowling green situated between Blaenavon and Cwmbran. Records show that the next meeting was held in July 1987 and at this meeting it was proposed that the first season should remain purely social, but some members wished to play friendly matches. Club competitions were started in the summer of 1988, annual trophies were donated by various people, and these are still played for every year.

In 1994 disaster struck, the clubhouse was burned to the ground, equipment was destroyed and many members lost a lot of personal equipment. This didn't mean the end of bowling at Garndiffaith, the members of the club, both ladies and men started work on fund raising to replace what was destroyed, and other bowling clubs helped out with donations and some equipment they no longer needed. Fortunately the building was owned and insured by Torfaen County Borough Council so in 1995 they had contractors in to commence work on replacing the clubhouse.

In 1996 like Pheonix rising from the ashes, the brand new bowls pavilion was opened at Garndiffaith Welfare Ground. During winter months the club have an indoor short mat that they use in the club house.

Club Membership

Garndiffaith Ladies Bowls Club are a small bowls club with only about seventeen members, but because of holidays and illness we are constantly struggling to have enough ladies available to make up a team.

If any ladies would like to join our club they would be made welcome, starting this year on April 27th we practice on Wednesday afternoons 2pm to 4pm, (weather permitting) and coaching is available to anyone who needs it.

Membership of the ladies club is £8.00 per year, the green fees for this year are £16.00 for juniors and Pensioners, and £32.50p for wage earners.

At our clubhouse we also have two mats for short mat bowling, these are put down in the clubhouse for members to use in the winter months, this winter we paid £1.50p each for a two hour session, this is to cover the rental cost of the pavilion.

During the year we hold several special events for our members, and often we invite non members to these events.

For more information please contact Joan Targett 01495 772173 or visit our web site.