About Bowls

Welcome to our Lawn Bowling sport in Manitoba. If you haven’t tried it yet, we hope to demonstrate that there’s plenty of variety and lots of people to meet — people of all ages from teens to seniors. One young fellow was still in school when he joined in 2008; but he became one of the top bowlers and has won trophies in individual and team play — he has represented Manitoba in 2016 winning a Silver medal.

Manitoba’s Clubs are located at several locations, including Gimli, Brandon, River Heights, St Vital, St James, St John’s, Sargent Park, and Tuxedo. We also play through the winter on indoor carpets at recreation centres — we just can’t get enough during the summer! Generally, we don’t play on a Sunday — unless we have a tournament, many of which include visitors from out of province. And why do we bowl? Our reasons vary … to improve motor skills, to stay fit, to relax after work, to gain confidence, or maybe just to communicate with our peers.

We obviously combine social play with competitive play. Sometimes a team combines players with many years’ experience with others newer to the game. Brenda, below, is a recent member and has already played in National competition. The young with older player pattern (previous picture) shows success in Provincial level competition.

Another of our members joined a club in 2011 and learned very quickly. He triumphed in 2017, beating players from across Canada and winning Gold (our top trophy). He’ll be heading off to Australia to try for the World title. Obviously, we suggest you join a club close to where you reside; but we give you time to decide if you really enjoy it. We have what we call Inter-Club matches, where several clubs converge and you get to play with members from all over our city. Yes, of course we show you how to bowl, supply you with bowls to get started, and encourage you. The new bowlers mix in quickly with the experienced ones and thereby have dozens of teachers.

A mother and daughter team, who’ve been winning trophies for almost thirty years, also won Gold in team play in 2017.

You don’t have to be over 15 or under 90 to get started! We already have younger and older members. We find that once you get hooked on staying fit and getting a free tan, you just can’t stay away. One of our 95-year-olds bowls both outdoors in summer and indoors in winter. We also have members who have bowled for more than fifty years–not without pausing, of course. If you’re a traveller, you’ll find the game of Bowls being played in many countries. In fact, if you happen to be a bowler from one of those other places, come and see us. We’d love to hear how your club operates and what differences you notice in our rules or methods. We have spare sets of bowls you can borrow as a visitor.

Our Clubs are designated Private (by the City), but we leave our gates open while we’re playing; so you can wander in and watch or ask questions. We have a social area with a kitchen and lots of chairs; and volunteers will be on hand to serve refreshments — usually a cold or hot drink and maybe some cookies. Occasionally, we even do a barbecue. The various links in this website will keep you informed who’s doing what, where, and when … so stay tuned.

From this ‘Introduction’ menu, you may visit ‘Some Basics’ (who, what, & why)
As well, the menu provides some bowls ‘Terminology’
Plus, three ‘Training’ exercises are described here which you may receive on the green