On Sunday 1st March at the lush (but slow) greens of Brunswick Bowls Club, the VFUA held its first social function of the year.

About 20 people showed up under blue and sunny skies to enjoy some hotly contested bowling as well as some snags and drinks.

Burgo was the early star of the rink as he curled his bowls to perfection, leaving Tyler quite flummoxed, addicted to the tactic of “driving” and convinced Michael Curtis was “the worst” bowler in attendance. Tyler might like to try bowling with a child in his arms first.

Life member Michaels – Richardson and Blair – combined to hand a bowling lesson to the duo of Luke McIlroy and Jacob Carroll. The backup arrived in the form of late inclusions Mitch Cole, Luke Richardson and Daniel Philp, but Richardson spent more time with his bowls in the gutter than Philpy spent cleaning chocolate ice cream off his clothes.

Speaking of food, the BBQ really hit the spot and gave some much needed nourishment to the participants.

Following the BBQ, attention turned back to the green where President Daniel Butcher introduced Lawn Bowls goalkicking – bowling your bowl between two jacks which decreased in width at the end of each knockout round. There were some embarrassing misses – there’s nothing like watching your bowl head sidewards onto someone else’s rink – and some that just sneaked in, but the oddity was Daniel’s insistence that if your bowl hit the jack (the post), it was still a goal. Goal umpires do not take note. Funnily enough, he held his nerve over 5 rounds to win, prompting some grumbles about his grassroots experience working at the Echuca/Moama bowls club as a young lad.

Unsurprisingly, while all the commotion was occurring over just how close the jacks were to each other, the boundary contingent of Daniel Pieper and Andrew Leggo were a couple of rinks away playing their own game. Bless ’em.

Attendance was certainly not limited to umpires. We had non-running life members Michael Richardson, Judi Elliott and David Flegg, trialee Kirsty Lord’s father, and Michael Curtis’ 1 year old son Noah, who spent much of his time either tripping over the bowls or attempting to crush people’s toes with them.

The VFUA would like to thank Michael Curtis, Shane Stewart and Daniel Butcher for helping out on the BBQ, as well as everyone who attended to kick the year off.