At the recent Senior Games held in Palo Alto, Berkeley bowlers Howard Mackey, Nikki Schrager and John Spiers brought home bronze medals in lawn bowling. Congratulations!

Saturday, April 24th should be a great day at BLBC! Bowlers from all over the Bay area will converge on the club around 9:00 a.m. for what has always been a fabulous event at BLBC. The format of the day will be triples with teams formed by random draw done by the Tournament Director, Howard Mackey. We expect that all available rinks will be in use between 9:30 and 3:30. Spectators are, of course, welcome.

Don’t forget to sign up for the Berkeley Jamboree tournament that is coming up on April 24th. It’s a very popular event, so get your name in or you’ll end up on the sideline. Contact Howard Mackey at [email protected] for more information.

The club will hold the first Pizza night event at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 28. We plan to start with a draw game for those interested with pizza dinner afterwards. Pizza will be available after the game for $5 per person. RSVP to [email protected].

On Saturday, March 27, John Spiers edged out Ted Crum to win the Two-Bowls Singles Tournament. Twelve entrants played two games with the four highest scoring players competing in a semi-final round. Two of the club’s newest members, both graduate students at Cal, were in the tournament and made their presence known by winning games against more seasoned members. Pictures will be posted in the Gallery section soon.

Our bowl-work-party event was, in my opinion, a success. Under sunny skies with warm weather, we bowled, cleaned, weeded, cleaned, mowed and trimmed. Dinner was at 5:30 and the food was fabulous. We even bowled more after dessert. Thanks to all the volunteers (Cathy, Susan, Sherrill, Geoff, Howard, Mark, Gary, Lennon, and George) who came to work with special kudos to Mark for mowing the surround.

Here’s hoping that those who want to bowl on Sunday afternoon will make it happen rather than wait for it to happen.

Dave R.

Gerard comes to BLBC from the USDA’s Western Regional Research Center in Albany where he leads a team of bioinformatics specialists that supports crop research. Gerald will be working on his bowling skills this summer to prepare for the novice tournament in the fall.

The San Jose Winter League is an annual event, hosted by the San Jose Lawn Bowling Club, that has become a notable feature of the Northern California “off season.” This year the winning teams comprised mainly Berkeley members. First place was taken by Jon Burnowski (BLBC) playing with Greg Fyvie (Santa Cruz). Josh’s younger brothers, Josh and Matt—aged 12 and 9!—and also BLBC members, came in second. Their Dad, Tom, playing with Peter Knopf (Palo Alto) was third, and fourth place was taken by Jim Corr and Nikki Schrager (both BLBC). Altogether 14 teams from clubs around the area competed against each other in a 6-week round robin format in January/February. Congratulations to the winners!

Mark Gurling recently joined the club after attending free lessons. Mark is a graduate student at UC Berkeley pursuing an advanced degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology. You may see his wife Ashley and their new daughter Adeline visiting as Mark hones his new-found skills. Welcome to the club Mark (and family).