2024 – 2025 Season AGM & Awards – 22 June 2025
Browns Bay’s superb feat in hosting three major tournaments in the past season was suitably rewarded at Bowls North harbour’s awards ceremony at Takapuna on Sunday.
Browns Bay was named the BNH club of the year and nobody present at the ceremony would dispute the claim from proud club president Pete Sheehan that the accolade was well deserved.
During the past season, Browns Bay had the onerous task of being the headquarters for the Metlifecare NZ Masters, the world champion of champion singles and then over the New Year period the national singles and pairs championships. Its vast core of volunteers, headed by Sheehan, on each occasion rose magnificently to the occasion, even when the weather was unfavourable. But Sheehan pointed out that was not Browns Bay’s only achievement in the past season. It now boasts a thriving one-to-five membership, with 70 juniors in all, 27 of whom are in their first year.
In another appropriate note one of Browns Bay’s long-time mainstays, Colin Rogan, won the supreme bowler of the year award. By his own high standards, which have brought him a staggering 39 centre titles, Colin had a quiet season, winning only one centre title and finishing runner-up in two others.
But the award went not just for his undoubted ability and feats on the green but for the huge contribution he has made to both club and centre, in advising and in heading match committees, his recording of centre titles and in coaching and spearheading Browns Bay’s junior drive.
Birkenhead’s Millie Nathan was a deserved winner of the women’s bowler of the year title and this was another reminder of Browns Bay’s world event hosting. For it was there Millie won the women’s world champion of champions title.
The late Ross Haresnape was proclaimed as one of the centre’s legends. Gary Stevens, chair of the legends panel, said that in the decade or so he was in the centre the contribution he made to it and to three of the clubs of which he was a member, Takapuna, Birkenhead and Browns Bay, was immense, both as a player and as a representative selector.
Besides the winners of the various centre championships and gold star winners there were a number of special awards bestowed.
They included volunteer of the year, Chico Sclanders (Riverhead), coach of the year, Graham Dorreen (Takapuna), umpire of the year, Lorna Donald (Mairangi Bay), official of the year, Doug Campbell (Birkenhead), Presidents Cup, Steve Card (Wellsford), one-to-five year men’s player of the year, Brendon McPhail, Helensville, one-to-five women’s player of the year, Jenni Hart Helensville, one-to-five year overall player of the year, Deanne Bronlund (Hobsonville), open men winner, Neil Fisher (Browns Bay).
Hobsonville’s Nigel Rattray provided much humour to the ceremony as a convivial emcee and a highlight was an interview with living legend, Jean Ashby, with fellow umpire, Lorna Donald.
Earlier at the centre annual meeting Helensville’s Neil Connell was declared president for another term, with Sue Rossiter, from Milford and the BNH umpires, as vice president. Mark Batley (Hobsonville) and Jan Harrison (Manly) will join the board, along with Tony Popplewell, Hanaan Shahwan and Greg Yelavich.
Board chair Tony Popplewell confirmed that in the coming season pennants will be played on Fridays during October. This was the only way it could be played in a calendar in which there were few or no spare Saturdays. It would be played in zones, as a mixed competition in which of the nine players there must be at least three players of each gender. Clubs would be restricted to one entry, but depending on entries an additional team from some clubs might be accepted.
Bowls New Zealand’s Martin McKenzie congratulated the centre on its ongoing success, pointing out that there were other centres, who unlike North Harbour were struggling. He said that when he joined BNZ in 2011 there were 33,000 registered bowlers but now that number was just 21,000. BNZ had calculated that the numbers playing, either socially or in twilight business-house competitions, was 43,000. He urged clubs to somehow find means by which those in that category could be involved in club memberships.