Souths Suburban’s Bowls Bites #5 11 October 2010

Welcome Grand Opening! We’re now using our new covered green. The first to another issue of games were held on Tuesday 21 September. And Souths Suburban’s everyone is saying how great the green is. Our Club ‘irregular’ news sheet. Committee has met and reports that the Official Opening will be in late November or early December Anything to say? Send it (waiting on date confirmation from Minister for Sport to me! and Recreation).

David Kidd

(Scribe) [email protected]

Souths Suburban Bowls Club, Mackay President: Bob Coad Secretary: John Palmer Treasurer: Ray Steen Club Phone: 4957 3233 PO Box 5004, Mackay Mail Centre 4741 Playing Days:

Tuesdays: Mixed Triples, 1.15pm (The finished green getting a good workout, September 2010) start Wednesdays: Men’s Triples, 1pm start Congratulations Thursdays: Ladies’ Triples, 1pm to John White on winning the Champion of Champions start Senior Singles Player for 2010. Fridays: Jackpot Medley Pairs, 2pm start Saturdays: Mixed Bowls, 1.15pm Souths AGM start The AGM of Southern Suburbs Football Club (Mackay) Sundays: Mixed Bowls, 1.15pm start Inc., is on Sunday 17 October, 9am, at Souths. All members of Souths Suburban Club (Ladies and Men) are eligible to attend and are urged to do so. Please come along and show support for Souths and “One of the good things about getting the major redevelopment of our bowls club. older is that you find you’re more interesting than most of the people you meet.” Commonwealth Games Update - Lee Marvin Catch up on how Lawn Bowls are doing at Delhi by going to bowlsaustralia.com on your computer. Coming Up! Committee Meeting Report The Col Dawes Memorial Day The C’ee met on 27 September. Decisions made are: combined with Pink Ribbon Day, AGM and Presentation Day – Saturday 20 Sunday 21 November 2010. November, at Souths Suburban Bowls Club. Mark it in your Diary! Bowls Qld Development Team are visiting Souths Suburban Wednesday 13 October. Inaugural Moranbah/Souths Suburban Annual Challenge at Moranbah, on 23 October. Greens Use Movable aluminium steps are being obtained to With the new covered green nearing assist access to the new green. completion, the Souths Suburban is being sent to Calen Bowls Committee has determined Letter of Congratulations how games are to be played in the College for their performance at the State All event of nominations for play being Schools Bowls Challenge. in excess of the numbers that can New Member – welcome to Graham Deas. Our play on the covered green for the Membership now totals 157. event of that day. Where nominations for play exceed 8 rinks, the covered green is to be filled and the remaining games A Laugh a Day played on the grass green. The rinks to be played on will be done by a blind draw. There will be no changes to the format for events so that all players can be accommodated under the cover. This means that if triples are the day’s event and there are more than 16 teams (or 48 people) nominated, play on the grass green will be required. The format will not be changed to fours to accommodate the additional players under cover. In circumstances where the grass green is not available (rain or green maintenance), it will be the first 16 teams or equivalent nominations for the day’s format that will be accepted. This will be the first 16 General Bowls News teams or equivalent individual Mackay District Mens Triples were played at Souths nominations for the day’s format as Suburban Bowls Club recently. listed on the nomination sheet. Results: Ray Kurtz, Mick Pilcher and Aaron Miller John Palmer, defeated Seaforth team of Kevin Schmidtke, Henry Secretary. Birditt and Bob Blucher to win the title. They narrowly beat Pioneer Valley by 1 to get in the final. Ladies results Group 7 Champion of champions were recently played Another great thing about getting against Mackay District & Leichhardt District to older is that you can finish your determine who plays in the State Champion of spouse’s sentences! Champions in October. The Suburban ladies were well represented winning the Mackay District Champion of Champions in Three Generations singles, pairs and fours. Winners who are going to the State Champion of the first 16 teams or equivalent individual champions: Singles - Di Faulkner Fours - Ester Regan, Lorna Coad, Floss Keft, & Delia Walsh Games to be played at Bribie Island: Mixed pairs - Di Faulkner and they play at the Coorparoo Bowls Club. North Queensland Ladies Championships - Suburban was well Three generations of the Blackburn family played in represented at Townsville recently. the final of Souths Suburban Men’s 2 bowl triples Suburban ladies Olwyn Taylor and game on 06 October. Peter and Steve Blackburn and Di Faulkner were Runners Up in the Mick Walsh defeated 2009 title holders, Gavin Kerr, final to Mackay City pair Dawn Field John White and Stan Blackburn. Up until end 19, & Carol Cocking. Gavin, John and Stan were ahead by 3, but then Peter Many thanks to Ann Putland for the Blackburn’s team fought back to win. above information.

Junior Bowls … Coaching Available Sports Award Night. Sunday mornings from 9am. It’s open to everyone at Jordon Whitestyles won an award Souths Suburban Bowls Club. And it’s free! at the recent Mackay State High

School’s sports awards night for the best and fairest in lawn bowls. Jordon played in the All Schools Cup Challenge this year and is among ‘That Bowling Arm’ several juniors who have been Players who have learnt to bowl with a bowling arm can training each Sunday morning. He achieve so much satisfaction. To put pride aside is a and Jack McFarlane are now great achievement. As we all grow older and become members of Souths Suburban Club stiff, arthritis in the hands, hip problems and bad and are to play their first club game knee joints, out comes the bowling arm. this week. For players who drop bowls, the bowling arm can be the answer to your problem. So, with our new green and a new bowling arm, members are able to play bowls and enjoy the company of other members. John Eastment and Nev Strickland are available to assist with coaching to help put the right foot forward! Rob Harris. (Level One Coach)

(Jordon Whitestyles practising his bowling!)

Jack is a joke - a swaggering lout with a big mouth. He has Cut & Paste talent, but he's a mug lair on the green, to the disgust of senior “Crackerjack” club stalwarts Stan (Bill Hunter), Len (Frank Wilson) and (Reviewed by Paul Byrnes, Sydney Morning Herald) Eileen (Monica Maughan). He's even worse in the clubhouse, where the beer at 1972 prices makes him sassy. Molloy plays him memorably - he's mouthy, sad and lonely all at once. The members are strictly codgers and he makes fun of their foibles. When Gwen, a champion fuss-budget played by Lois Ramsey, wants him censured for his unauthorised making of a cheese sandwich, he asks if he should have his lawyer present, but a lot of the jokes are at his expense. Bowls, Stan tells him pointedly, is a "true revealer of character", meaning he knows the kid doesn't have any. The most pointed line is about the difference between Stan's outlook on work and Jack's. "I'd dig ditches with the right people," growls Stan, with withering candour. This nostalgia for an Australia of mateship and communal spirit is the film's main surprise. This is a broad comedy with a

I'm all right Jack, but for how long? Judith Lucy, televisual style - including some dreadful mugging to camera - Bill Hunter and Mick Molloy in a scene from so who expected social critique as well? Crackerjack. The thesis is ironic, because it's what you might hear in the bar at any Australian bowling club - the young today don't have Directed by Paul Moloney any values, or direction, or sense of community; the country's Written by Mick Molloy and Richard gone to the dogs and money is all that matters. Molloy The Molloy brothers spent eight weeks travelling around Rated M bowling clubs in Victoria, harvesting stories and ideas and, (Now available on DVD) clearly, the state of the country was a popular topic. The script takes these ideas to heart, making Jack a shiftless Until Crackerjack, I had never understood slob and John Clarke's character, Bernie, a white shoe brigade the connection in our culture between a scumbag. He's the devil who tempts Jack with a quick buck. lawn bowls green and Gallipoli. The movie is about Jack getting knocked off the donkey, like Comedian Mick Molloy never mentions it St Paul. Jack grows to manhood through bowls. This field of explicitly, but it's at the heart of this good- green becomes his Gallipoli, in a way, as a bunch of senior natured comedy, co-written with his citizens teach him about honour, fidelity, and teamwork. brother Richard, in which there's a If this makes Crackerjack sound more like an RSL comedy nostalgia for our lost honour. than a bowling club comedy, that's misleading - the politics One connection is perhaps that a bowling aren't laboured, nor are they as right-wing. The script takes a green is not a battlefield, despite the few shots at the way radio shock jocks encourage hatred of competition. That may have been part of asylum seekers, for instance. The Molloy brothers clearly had a its psychic attraction for a generation who lot more than bowls on their minds. had been through wars. There is nothing Politics don't always make a picture funnier, of course, but they so calm and ordered as a bowling green. do here because they're integrated into the characters. The surface is flat, green and well- Stan the bowls tragic, played by Bill Hunter, is a growling bull mowed, not churned up with mud, blood of indignation, mixed with towering decency. Judith Lucy, as and bits of your dead mates. No wonder the bowls reporter for the local rag (the closest the film has to a some of our soldier fathers had an love interest) is funny because she sees clearly how much of a obsession with green grass and the nature jackass Jack is, and tells him often. strip. The film could have been smug about the old fogeys; instead, Molloy's character understands none of it's a sort of tribute to their hardiness and idealism, and a this. The dead do not trouble him. rebuke to those who underestimate them. It's also a reasonable He's Jack Simpson, a fat-arsed slob and giggle. scammer who owns three memberships at [email protected] his local bowling club, but has never picked up a bowl. Membership gets him free parking near Melbourne's CBD; he sells access to the other spaces to his friends. The club is skint, but refusing to give in to a developer (John Clarke) who wants to bring in pokies. Faced with losing his membership, Jack must learn how to play the game.