Category Archives: Special Events

Club Members, Special Events

Opening Day 2025

Opening Day, the official beginning of the lawn bowling tournament season, was held on 5 April at the Rossmoor Lawn Bowling Club. Rossmoor’s three greens were looking fine and, better yet, bowled well with a reasonably fast pace. Opening Day provides a welcome opportunity to renew acquaintances from other clubs with this year’s attendance including 108 enthusiastic lawn bowlers from the Bay Area and beyond. That’s eighteen triples games underway at once on three greens.

Calvin Darling and Bud Birkenseer get things rolling.

The event was kicked off by Calvin Darling, PIMD President, and Bud Birkenseer, longstanding Tournament Director for the PIMD.  Bud, as always, ran a smooth ship – no small feat given the large turnout. He is undeniably one of the great heroes of Bay Area lawn bowling and a most pleasant guy to boot. The winning teams were awarded prize money!  A good time was had by all.

From upper left clockwise: Ethan and Judy, Leslie and Cindy, Stephan and Karen, Chris and Mike.

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club had a great showing with 22 bowlers participating in the games. The weather cooperated with a pleasant sunny day and slightly warm temperatures. It was great weather for bowling and for our home green’s recuperation. While we were having a good time bowling at Rossmoor, our green back home was enjoying its last days of rest in recovering from the spring tine and sand maintenance. We should be bowling back home fairly soon.

From upper left clockwise: Cris, Glenn, Phil, Bernadette, HC and Ashok.

It was good to have this group of Berkeley bowlers practicing during Opening Day, for we will be back at Rossmoror next Saturday for the annual Over the Hill Tournament to be played on their home turf.

From upper left clockwise: Aika and Lennon; Janie and Patricia; Leslie and Charlie; Claudia and Mei.

Community, Special Events

Terry Taplin Visits

Terry Taplin, the Council Member for Berkeley’s Second District, stopped by today’s draw game for a tour of the club and an introduction to bowling.

Our City contacts back in 1930.

The club is located in Mr. Taplin’s district as are well over a dozen club members. Our long history with the city dates back to BLBC’s inauguration in 1929. Our green and clubhouse are situated on City property so it is a fine thing to have the opportunity to brief the Council Member on developments at the club and our upkeep of facilities.

Council MemberTaplin displaying fine form on the green. We hope he comes back to bowl.

It was lovely to meet the Council Member and his staff. We appreciate their taking time to visit.

Club Members, Special Events, Volunteer Work

Green Maintenance soon

We approach the Ides of March and that means it is time to lavish even more attention on our lovely green.

Work day on Sunday, 23 March, 2025

The Greenskeepers need your help with tining, plug removal and sand application/removal, among other tasks. There are also some light duty tasks in addition to those that are outlined below.  For newer members, this is a great opportunity to learn more about how our green is maintained and to meet other members you may not know.

We will be providing pizza and light snacks for those who volunteer, please let us know if you will join for that.  

Below is an outline of main tasks and timing.  We hope to be done by early afternoon and can use your help even if for a short period of time.

Starting around 8:30 we need 6 volunteers to shovel the plugs from Jose’s tining into wheelbarrows.

View of tining plugs, numbering over 200,000, being swept up for removal.

Starting around 10:00 we need 4-8 volunteers to shovel sand into wheelbarrows and then use buckets to dump the sand into the mechanical spreader. The larger number of volunteers would allow for breaks. 

Starting around 10:30 we need 2-4 volunteers to sweep sand into the plug holes along edges and corners only. Jose will use the tractor with a broom/mat to sweep the sand from most of the green.

The club has most of the equipment, but we could use snow-type shovels and sturdy dollies. Please bring them along if you have those.

Spreading sand to fill the holes created by tining.

We do have some work/gardening gloves, but please bring your own if you have those. 

Please reply to this email by Sunday March 9 to let us know that you can join and what time slot, or to let us know any questions.

Following the workday the green will be closed for approximately one month for continued maintenance.

Club Members, Special Events

BLBC February Follies

Glenn Nunez to BLBCers on 3/30/2024:

It was pointed out to me recently that I’ve been remiss in sharing the results of the recently-completed BLBC February Follies with our Club members. Mea culpa.

This experimental league event turned out to be aptly named, as the folly of scheduling anything during the unpredictability of February weather in the Bay Area presented more than a fair share of topsy-turvy. Two dates postponed by rain led to some folks, unable to meet the new schedule, playing their matches midweek. Only half of the original twelve entrants bowled in glorious sunshine during the final Saturday.

When the dust finally settled, Cindy Moss, Ashok Verma, Art Kotoulas, and Sal Garcia-Lemus took home prize envelopes. Cathy Dinnean laid down the winning shot in the post-tournament scramble to claim the not-insubstantial contents of the Ron Byus Memorial Kitty. All in all, it was a pretty good event…

If enough people show interest, I’d consider setting up a similar league – with a couple of format tweaks – sometime this Summer. Let me know back-channel if you might be interested and if so, would you prefer a daytime event on a weekend, or an evening during the week.

Club Members, Special Events, Tournaments

Florida Here We Come!10/29-11/4/2023

BLBC Pres. Glenn Nunez to BLBCers on 9/26/2023:

As many of you know, BowlsUSA’s National Championships take place next week in Sun City, FL. Representatives from each of the seven divisions face one another in a true Champion of Champions tournament to determine the finest in our sport.

But did you know just how grand Berkeley’s presence will be during this prestigious event? As a result of having won the PIMD Playdowns earlier this year, Annie Brillhart (Women’s Singles), JIm Corr (Men’s Singles), and dual-member Frankie Napoli (Men’s Pairs) will be carrying the BLBC banner throughout the week.

This is a big deal! Put it in the following perspective: There are only four separate categories in the Nationals and we have members in THREE of them. Not convinced? How about this then: PIMD is sending six players from among its eleven clubs and HALF of them have lockers on Acton Street. Our Club has every reason to be proud.

There’s a list of competitors at

www.bowlsusa.us/national-championship.html with a link to the full schedule of events, which I suspect will be updated with scores as they become available.

Annie, JIm, and Frankie, as you pack for your flights to Florida this Saturday and prepare for your first game on Wednesday morning, know there’s a huge team pulling for you back home. Best of luck from everyone at BLBC!

********

And, more from our Facebook page on 10/31/2023 … Ann Brillhart and Jim Corr are headed to Nationals! We hope you bring us back a couple of trophies.

Club Members, Rental Events, Special Events, Tournaments

BLBC Brings Trophy Back “Over the Hill”

2019 “Over the Hill” Challenge Players at Rossmoor LBC

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club sent seven triples teams to Rossmoor Bowling Club in Walnut Creek for the “Over the Hill” Challenge. The BLBC competed against them and indulged in a little bit of the friendly rivalry typical of the match since the Challenge began in 1969.

After a hiatus of twenty years or so, the clubs resurrected the event in 2016. Scheduling conflicts in 2019 prevented that year’s challenge from happening, so the clubs agreed to hold the 2019 version of the challenge on February 15, 2020 (the 2020 games will take place this August at Berkeley).

Berkeley went into lunchtime with a healthy advantage of 6 wins and only one loss. After the break, Rossmoor returned resurgent, as the afternoon games revealed. Some of the games went down to the wire, but Berkeley prevailed to win 5 of the afternoon games. The final total for the match: 11 wins for BLBC and 3 wins for Rossmoor LBC. Credit to Rossmoor for wonderful hosting and very sporting play. We’ll see them again in August!  Well done to everyone that bowled yesterday, especially to some members representing the club for the first time.

Berkeley Takes the Trophy
Club Members, Community, featured, Frontpage, Special Events, Volunteer Work

Green Closed for Maintenance. See you Feb. 14!

A note from our Greens-keeper: The BLBC greens are closed for maintenance. As the picture shows, when we mean maintenance, we mean it! We expect the work to be completed by February 14. Thanks to our Greens-keeper and the volunteer labor of our members, we will have the green in good shape for bowling when the weather turns nicer. See you then!

Club Members, PIMD, Special Events, Tournaments, Visiting Bowlers

Berkeley Invitational 3-Bowls Singles

Warm temperatures and blue skies made for a beautiful day at the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club green. The invitational attracted some high quality players from the Bay Area, making up some very strong mixed pairs teams. The level of bowling on display was a credit to the PIMD and to Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club, who hosted this new event on the calendar.  There were some really close games and some very tight results. As you’d expect in a tournament with this many quality players, no one ran away with it and the final results came down to the last couple of bowls being rolled on the day. 
 Taking first prize and drawing the tournament winning shot with his last bowl:
Gareth Cole & Giulia Gallo
 A very creditable second place went to the very strong team of:
Russell Leonard & Janice Bell (good luck to Janice in the upcoming Nationals!)
And third place went to the extremely consistent pair of:
Jim Corr & Annie Brillhart Many thanks to everyone that came from near and far to participate and to everyone at the club that helped make the day run so smoothly.

Community, Special Events

Young Bowlers Program a Huge Success

Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club initiated its first Young Bowlers Program in April. Twenty-three sixth graders (and one brave teacher) from The Berkeley School were introduced to lawn bowling. Club coaches set up four games of Triples and were on hand to help with learning how to bowl, to explain rules and strategy, and to ensure everyone had a great time. The student’s Physical Education teacher was on thegreen giving encouragement and watching their progress. The students were very enthusiastic and completely involved in the games. No slackers in this group! All the kids were awarded gold medals by their coaches. Our Club plans to continue the relationship with The Berkeley School as part of the School’s regular phys. ed. program. Who knows, maybe a future national champion is in the making?