Drumoak Durris Crathes BC Club Story
In response to suggestions received in our 2021 Club Survey, Bowls Scotland introduced an online calendar listing all events and workshops available in 2022 for bowling clubs and members. We spoke to Paul Betteridge, Vice President of Drumoak. Durris Crathes BC in District 4, who has already attended some of the courses available this year.
Paul is relatively new to bowls, joining his club in just 2019, but has a background and some experience in leadership and instructing outside of the sport. Having received a brilliant coaching session himself when he first took up the sport from Ian Hepworth (Bowls Scotland Tutor), Paul was keen to gain his own qualifications in order to offer coaching for existing members and any newcomers at his and other clubs. “I’ve just gone through the Brightspace e-Learning modules with Adam Martin (Bowls Scotland Coach & Volunteer Manager) as part of the Level 1 Coaching Course – it was absolutely fantastic! The course itself, I really can’t praise highly enough. The practical work on the Sunday with Tutors Ramsay Kyle and Ian Hepworth was exceptional. I attended a variety of training courses and instructed a lot of things throughout my career and this is definitely one of the best supported e-Learning experiences – and practical experiences that I’ve been involved in.”
Stepping up to fill the club admin role on the committee this year, Paul also attended one of the Zoom workshops for support and training on the affiliation process using our Online Club and Membership System hosted by Gillian Boyce, Bowls Scotland’s Membership & Business Officer. “Following the Zoom workshop and with use of the user guide it was relatively easy for me to complete and update the required info. Payment for the various purchases with a credit card was again straight forward. We obtained our Bowls Scotland 2022 accreditation certificate and receipt as within minutes of the payment being approved. This system is much better and of course faster than the old 'hard copy' way of working. This is the sort of thing that will help us modernise certain processes as a club.” As well as attending the Zoom workshop, Paul made use of the help guides that are available with step by step instructions and graphics to complete affiliation using the system, “It’s not as scary as people think, if you’ve got a basic understanding of how to switch a PC on… the support from members of the Bowls Scotland team and documentation that you have access to and can use after the workshops should be enough for people to walk through the process.”
The bowling club in Drumoak also hosts a range of community events and activities from bingo nights, pilates, community groups and quiz nights they also have a pop-up post office once a week since the main office in the village closed. Paul also hopes to establish links with one of the local schools now that he has obtained his coaching qualification. We wish the club all the best for their 2022 and thank Paul for his time sharing his experiences of some of our courses and workshops.
If you are interested in finding out more about coaching and development opportunities click here to view our Annual Calendar which outlines both online and face-to-face courses available to clubs and members this season.