Bowls Oxfordshire Executive Committee Meeting
Tuesday 17th February 2026 @ 7.00 pm.
Held at West Witney B.C
Minutes
In Attendance.
Chris, Amanda, Ann, Julia, Alan, Ron, Zoe, Georgina, Kevin, Craig, John Hurren, Terry.
Apologies.
John Henwood.
Alan welcomed all to the meeting and thanked West Witney for the use of their Club.
Minutes of the Bowls Oxfordshire Executive Committee meeting held on Tuesday 13th January 2026, having been circulated, were signed as a true record.
Proposed Ron Seconded John Hurren
Matters arising (not covered in this agenda)
Minutes of mixed meeting were received, and Men’s section meeting received, Young Bowlers meeting minutes also received.
1.Treasurers report
The County Account stands at £ 38,486 at the end of 16 February.
A good proportion of this represents “pass through” money, which will be forwarded to other businesses at the right time (for example: National competition Entry fees, a pre-order for new clothing and the 2026 Tour, for the Men’s section).
Income and Expenditure, from 1 November 2025 to 16 Feb, 2026 is summarised as follows:
|
INCOME |
£ |
|
EXPENDITURE |
£ |
|
Comps - Dom |
1,881 |
Annual dinner costs |
140 |
|
|
Comps - county |
2,077 |
Auditor fee |
50 |
|
|
Comps – B E |
4,313 |
Comp expenses |
210 |
|
|
Sale of old shirts |
75 |
Prizes/ engraving |
240 |
|
|
Pre -orders for new kit |
7,551 |
|||
|
Tour 26 deposits |
2,500 |
Bank charges |
48 |
|
|
Total: |
18,397 |
Total: |
688 |
(Rounded up or down to the nearest £)
Ring fenced amounts for sections C/F into 2026 - Young Bowlers £1,827
Income from Comp entries - Men £ 2,296
Women £ 838
Mixed £ 669
Y/ B Section £0
These figures represent an increase in entries for the 2026 season.
Both Ann and Terry suggested opening a deposit account to get a slightly better return on the money which John agreed to in principle and said he would explore some options John proposed to move £10,000 across to a new account, which everyone agreed with.
2.Reports from Sections, any meetings updates?
Men’s Section
Chris said a meeting had taken place on January 26th, where the meeting divided into a draw for the Men’s Competitions, and discussions were mostly about this season Middleton Cup and HCL squads, There was another selection meeting planned for 23rd February. Chris said he had received and filed the minutes of this meeting.
Mixed Section
Terry reported that the date of the next Mixed section meeting will take place on March 31s. The Minutes of the last meeting had been sent to Chris and filed. Competitions were discussed as was the over 60’s Competition that was unable to be played last year due to lack of players as it clashed with a Men’s County Friendly game.
Ladies Section
Ann went through some of the main topics covered , the kit purchase, what would be expected of the Ladies teams playing this year re dress code,(in line with other sections this being a transitional year. Topics from Clubs for the proposed delegates meeting. A request that younger players from the Junior sections put their names forward for the Johns and Walker Cup teams, Perhaps this could be achieved by recommendations from Zoe?
Young Bowlers Section
There was a clash of dates with one of the fixtures on the 25th May, which was when Men’s 2 wood is going to be played, so it was hoped to change the date to 9th May or Sept for the juniors. An end of season U25 day will be held at Bloxham and it was decided to invite an over age player to play with each Junior team, as a triples. There was still one Junior competition to draw.
Zoe was hoping to combine an Admin policy package via Microsoft forms, and trial an availability app for games to be played.
Note
In the first sets of BOE minutes when section meetings took place, I included each set of Minutes from each section meeting. However, this added a minimum of 3 or 4 pages to each set of BOE minutes. So now I just pick out 3 or 4 items from each set of section Minutes, which so long as everybody is happy with, I will continue to do. So long as I am sent Minutes from each section meeting that I can file, as they take place, any member of the BOE committee can request a set of Minutes from another section to view if they wish.
Will discuss and confirm at next meeting.
3.Update from Kit Roadshows/Supplier.
Craig gave a summary of ALL that had transpired after the 4 Kit roadshows had taken place across the County in January. In total 278 garments were ordered,169 shirts and 109 jackets.
Additional stock was ordered, with Craig suggesting a total of 39 stock shirts should be ordered of various sizes based on the percentage of shirts ordered in those particular sizes.
Eventually new stock will be able to be purchased via the website, by individuals.
If the order were placed the following day(February 18th) a 6–8-week lead time would ensue before the order arrived.
Discussion followed re players who had ordered shirts but had not yet paid, and it was eventually agreed to order the shirt , but on the understanding that the person who had ordered a shirt, would not receive it until they had paid in full.
A vote was taken on this issue , and all agreed to proceed with the order on the lines described above.
A further discussion took place on a separate issue, as to whether a blue polo shirt be purchased with funds made available from the Summertown Trophy, the shirt to be worn by members of the Middleton Cup squad to travel to games in. This was in preference to the previous suggestion that players arrive in the “old” Oxfordshire shirt that was used last year. Debate centered on whether the funds from the Summertown Trophy would be made available to purchase the blue polo shirts , and the possibility of one section being offered something that would not be available to other sections, although it was pointed out that this was allowed for and permitted under the Financial guidance policy.
It was decided that it should be confirmed whether the funds would be made available first before any further comment was made.
Chris said he would like it minuted of his appreciation of the work put in by Zoe and Craig on this particular project despite setbacks at times during the process, and the goal was now nearly achieved.
All agreed with these comments.
4.Logistics for distribution of kit.
The matter of distributing the kit was discussed. Craig said he and Zoe had the Master list of all orders, the kit would be delivered to his house, where they would go through the order list one by one, bag up the orders , name them and then arrange for the order distribution. Alan asked if they wanted assistance with this, and Craig thanked him for the offer, but said they would prefer to do it themselves.
All agreed on this process.
5. Dress Code changes across all sections.
This item had been dealt with in item 3 with all sections adopting the same criteria for the wearing of kit in County Friendly games in this transitional year.
6. Review of R9/ Correspondence on the matter.
Alan said he had been advised that it would be beneficial to store some or all of the website into I cloud , which would make access for individuals to particular documents much easier as they would be available to use without having to request them from individual sources.This system would need to be backed up on a regular basis for it to work
Zoe offered to investigate google drive for access to documents and will bring back findings to the next meeting.
John said he would contact Jacques from Club Concern, to ask his views on the subject and report back.
Chris said he had understood very little of this discussion, but if those who knew about this subject were happy with the conclusions, this is what he would minute, or at least attempt to!
7. Updating the Website with new committee (photos and short bio).
Georgina reported that she now had the majority of pictures and short bios from Committee members and once she had them all she would enter them all on the website with Ann’s assistance.
8. Access on website to County Competition draws.
Alan gave the figures for the County Competition entries for the 2026 season Figures up men’s section up 11% Ladies’ section up 10%, young bowlers 50% and mixed section had seen the biggest increase in entries, up 58% which was all very positive
John asked if the entry fee for 2027 would rise to £4.20 per person. It was agreed to defer to next meeting as the Bowls England AGM was being held the following weekend and this might give a clue as to what to do next.
9. Update on return of Club details form.
Chris said that the majority of the Club details had now been returned, following a third reminder to 7 clubs.
All Club details received have now been updated on the website including the
Safeguarding and Coaching sections.
Zoe asked if these details could be tabulated into a more readable format . Chris said he would welcome assistance with doing that and Zoe offered to update when she had time.
Chris said Wychwood have been in contact and want to be affiliated again this year, and he believed Chadlington were looking at doing the same, which was very good news.
10. Update on content for delegates meeting 11th March
Chris said as it stood, the Delegate meeting scheduled for March 11th at Kidlington Bowls Club would be cancelled as only one Club had come forward with 2 separate items for discussion and this was insufficient content from which to form an Agenda
At last year’s AGM it was made clear that Clubs would provide content, and all those who had answered the survey on the subject had committed to do so.
If as was likely it was cancelled the next scheduled delegates meeting was in October, date to be agreed.
11.County Sponsorship Lead.
Zoe has been busy sending an application to Sports England Movement fund and putting together a funding document.
Zoe proposed to use the phrase ‘This Girl Can’ to apply to Banbury Ladies and also other clubs around the County. Using the brand of ‘This Girl Can’ to encourage all Ladies/ Girls of any age, size, ethnicity etc to ensure more females take up Bowls.
Zoe was aiming for a Coaching course – which would be a 1 day sit down course and possibly a Bowls Alliance Safeguarding course.
The “This girl can” would be 2 sessions a week involving coaching and having a roll up.
Photos could be taken at some Ladies games but would be submitted to This Girl Can before publishing.
Bowls is a fully inclusive sport and making people aware of this is an important factor.
Ladies Gala Day this season, which was open to all Lady bowlers within the County playing in Club tops, would be another photo opportunity with photos to generate media for the following year.
The Movement fund could operate in different ways with different Clubs if clubs didn’t feel the need to attract Ladies, then perhaps attracting Younger bowlers could be the focus instead.
Another possibility was visiting schools or taking buddy bowls into schools and using them during PE sessions or after schools’ club. Chipping Norton have 10 sets of smaller bowls available to use.
Goals for the BOE Committee are what we are doing for the clubs and then focus on 2 or 3 goals ie improving membership levels.
And can the committee help them with that. * add goals to next meeting*
Helping them apply for funding.
Focus of the initiative – how to do it – uses of funding – end goal , gala day. Zoe is working on this, and potentially a trial with Banbury Borough.
12.Bowls England matters.
Alan said he and Ann were going to Leicester for the Bowls England AGM on Saturday 21st Feb 2026.
The new Chairman of the Board Jonathan Doust comes with a full CV of previous accomplishments!
BE has finally filled the vacancy for Safeguarding Officer who will be Maria White , who has held similar posts in other sporting organizations.
The subject of valuation of the Bowls Oxfordshire trophies was raised , and were they insured, the answer being that John Hurren investigated this 3 or 4 years ago, and the annual premium was prohibitive.
Alan pointed out that two Celebration matches would take place in Oxfordshire this year, as two clubs in the County had cause to do so Banbury Central celebrating 125 years existence, and Adderbury 100 years.
BE have decided due to costs, not to send a team to the European championships in Wales!
13.Safeguarding issues.
Ron stated he was doing Safeguarding courses locally, when required.
Any new legislation Ron will pass on, which might now arise after Bowls England’s recent appointment.
There were no safeguarding issues from Clubs within the County at present.
AOB
Ann highlighted that the following weekend would see the Indoor U14 singles competition and U18 at Chipping Norton, the winner of which will go through to the National Finals later in the year.
Ron said he had booked the Exeter Hall for the 2026 Presentation dinner for 31st October. Any changes to the format could be discussed at a later date.
The subject of Rule 44 – re coaching during a game, and in particular playing competitions, had been raised by a female competitor. For a definitive answer Chris had referred the matter to Ed Poole, regional Umpires coordinator, and eventually a satisfactory answer had been given.
Julia said that Banbury Ladies now have three mixed matches scheduled and an Australian League pairs competition scheduled with the Banbury Borough Men’s section.
Craig said he wished to thank all the Clubs who hosted the Kit Road shows.
Ann was thanked for the first newsletter , which had been well received. Ann said the second newsletter was imminent, and if members had items they wished to be included, to let her know
Amanda suggested a photo of Craig, in full new kit , be taken and added to th web site.
Date and venue for the next meeting were agreed as Tues 17th March at Carterton Bowls Club starting at 7.00pm
There being no further business to discuss, the meeting closed at 21.25 pm.