2025 Try Bowls Survey Results

Try Bowls is Bowls Scotland’s flagship recruitment programme, designed to increase participation and grow the sport. The adaptable initiative enables clubs to target individuals of all ages and abilities through tailored approaches that align with both club objectives and community needs. 2025 saw the number of clubs engaging with the Try Bowls programme increase by 18% bringing the total number of Try Bowls clubs to 529.

Our 2025 feedback survey received responses from 86 clubs (16% of Try Bowls Clubs). Feedback remains vital to ensure the continued development and success the programme has in assisting our clubs to recruit and retain new members.

We included a club recruitment question to the annual affiliation form to understand how many of our clubs are actively recruiting new members, how they are doing that and if they are seeing a benefit to them. 420 clubs in Scotland held a membership recruitment event in 2025 seeing an overall membership increase of 0.1%, however, clubs that did not hold a membership recruitment event have seen an overall membership decrease of 1.2%.

The full survey results can be found by clicking here 

View a summary of the key findings below: