Star & Crescent 87 (12)  Portsmouth Water 71 (4) In a much needed win, Star overcame their depleted opponents and shared the rink points. Alan New's rink was a tad unlucky after a spirited fight back from a losing position to be pipped on the final end 17-18. After a shaky start Geoff Dyer's men took control of the match against the 3-man rink of the Watermen and racked up a huge 30-9 victory.  Robbie Dennison's four somehow found themselves 18-1 up at the halfway stage and then reality set in; their lead was dramatically reduced to 26-17 at the final.  Simon Filippi's rink was all square on the 11th end but finished badly winning just one of the remaining ends to finish 14-27 adrift.

Late Tuesday Afternoon, the P&D web manager - Albie Somerset - suffered a major heart attack. Thankfully, he has survived but is still in intensive care. As such the P&D website will not be updated for a while. As an interim measure, the league secretary will be sending the league table PDF's (ie league, combination & midweek triples) to the affected clubs. The P&D are also looking at how they can get updates out for P&D competitions and will let us all know at a later date.

The College Park Secretary has informed P&D BA that College have had no option but to withdraw their Red Side from Combination Division 3 due to a lack of players who wish to play in the evenings - another hang over from Covid. As such, they have been deleted from the table. This withdrawal will hit our combination team hard with the consequence that after this week's match at Lee-on-the-Solent the team will not then have another game until Wednesday 8th June when we play Bedhampton (home).

P&D competition entry forms are available now with a closing date of 1^st May. Cost per competition is £1.50/per player. All competitions & formats are back to pre-Covid days. Please let me know if you wish to enter.

To ease the disappointment of Waverley's decision not to fulfill the promise they made in 2020 for half price season tickets this year, your committee has agreed that those members who, in good faith, paid the full Waverley fees in 2020 will be subsidised to the tune of £20.00/per member towards the cost of their 2022 Waverley fees.  The full fees will be the same as pre-Covid times ie £90.00 for members under 65 years of age and £80.00 for the more senior members aged over 65. Please note that this offer does not apply to those members who only paid the £15.00 Social Membership fees in 2020.

Waverley smoking policy has changed and is now "NO Smoking on the Green (including E-Cigarettes)"

As agreed at the P&D 2022 AGM, League Divisions 2 & 3 fixtures have been redrawn so that teams now only play each other 3 times rather than the 4 times previously annotated in the draft proposals.   Our website has been updated to show these changes.

Rebalancing League Divisions for the 2023 Season  

Rebalancing League Divisions if Less than 21 Sides are Entered

The SGM voted that if we get to the position of having less than 21 sides, then the league was to be run with 2 divisions. In order to achieve this, the Competition Committee further decided the following:

· Post 2023 Season
i).      The side who finishes bottom of division 1 in the season just ended will be relegated to division 2.
ii).     The top 4 sides from division 2 will be promoted to the new division 1.
iii).    Division 2 will then consist of: the relegated division 1 side, the remaining division 2 sides & all division 3 sides.

· Post 2022 Season
i).      The side who finishes bottom of division 1 will be relegated to division 2
ii).     Only the top 2 sides from division 2 will be promoted to the new division 1.  

2022 Combination League Divisions

As only 32 sides have been entered by the Clubs for 2022, then the Competition Committee also agreed that the combination league would consist of 4 divisions of 8 Sides. This has been achieved as follows:
· Only the 2019 divisional winners have been promoted (shown in upper case below)
·  Further sides have been relegated (shown in italics below), based on the final 2019 tables, as follows:
i).      Division 1 - bottom 3
ii).     Division 2 - bottom 4  
iii).    Division 3 - bottom 4

All of which means that the sides in the 2022 divisions are as follows:

Only 21 clubs have indicated they would be running a league side for the 2022 season after Crofton, Hayling Island & Emsworth dropped theirs. This means that, based on the promotion & relegation after the completion of the 2019 season, the clubs that make up each division are, currently, as follows: Division 1 - 9 sides, Division 2 - 6 sides & Division 3 -6 sides. This imbalance of numbers was addressed at a SGM on 9 December so that each Division has the same number of sides (7).

Three options were proposed:

1). Rebalance immediately so that the 2022 League would consist of 3 Divisions of 7 sides.

2). Run 2022 with Div. 1 having 8 Sides; Div. 2 with 7 Sides; Div. 3 with 6 sides

3). Run 2022 with the Divisions made up of 9, 6 & 6 sides, rebalancing would take place over three years.

Option 3 was overwhelming voted for.

Question 1: Whilst most members would prefer to play 4-rinks, it is thought that as a small club with a small membership it could cause problems with team selection throughout the season.  Therefore the consensus of opinion to question 1 is that S&C would say NO to playing 4-rink matches.

Question 2: Playing 3-rinks is the preferred choice of the membership because it would be more manageable  with less problems on team selection and also that we could put out stronger teams (on paper). So, the results to question 2 is YES the club would prefer to play 3-rink league matches

Question 3: The replies for this question was 7-6 in favour of 21 ends to be played.  Some members pointed out that 21-end matches played on artificial surfaces take much longer and sometimes it is difficult to complete these games in good light. The answer to question 3 is that the club does  not mind playing 18 or 21 ends.

• Singles (including Junior Singles) – 21 up

• Pairs (including Junior Pairs) – Four bowls 18 ends

• Triples – Three bowls 18 ends

• Fours (including Senior Fours) – Two bowls 18 ends

• Two-bowl singles – Two bowls 21 ends

As the 2021 season closes the build-up to 2022 season has started and as such the County competition entry forms are now available. The closing date for entries is 31st January 2022. Unfortunately, Bowls England (BE) haven't been forthcoming on if they are changing entry fees for 2022, so at the moment the entry fee has been set as last year i.e.£4.00 per person per entry. When BE get round to making their minds up then Bowls Hampshire will let us know. Also, be aware that the playing formats for 2022 are in line with the above BE formats

However, the P&D are aware that after the last two years, clubs may have problems in meeting these formats. Consequently, they need input from each club on their thoughts. So the questions that I'm asking you, the members, are : 1) Do you think that the club will be able to run a League team of 4 Rinks of 4 Bowlers?, 2) Do you think that the club will be able to run a League team of 3 Rinks of 4 Bowlers? and 3) In League & Combination games would you prefer playing 18 or 21 Ends? I would be very grateful if you can reply to those questions ASAP.

To be able to plan for 2022 the P&D require replies from each club by the end of October 2021, so that the responses can be put before the clubs when the next P&D Executive Meeting is held.