Perth bowling club offers new activities to attract sporting community

A Perth lawn bowls club that faced closure due to an ageing membership and rising costs has become a thriving community social hub, thanks in part to the conversion of some of its greens to rollerskating rinks.

As reported by ABC Radio Perth, two of the Bayswater Bowling Club's greens are now used for roller hockey.

Club Vice-President Mark Cameron advised that closing down was a real possibility seven years ago, commenting “if it wasn't for the major uproar from the community in Bayswater in being extremely vocal, I think it would have been a done deal.

"We had fewer bowls players and the costs associated with running a bowls club is something that gets on top of many of the small clubs in Australia."

The key to staying open was not to encourage more people to take up lawn bowls, but to open up the club to different sports and introduce social memberships that allowed people to come, even if they weren't playing sport.

While the bowling club was looking for a way to survive, Eamonn Lourey, co-founder of the Street Roller Hockey League (SRHL), was searching for a place to play.

Lourey said of his game, which involves playing a form of ice hockey on rollerblades, “one of the hardest things about being a new sport is finding venues.

"We were playing on tennis and basketball courts, often with different levels of approval from councils.

"We got kicked off so many courts that we decided we had to build our own."

As a result, the Bayswater Bowling Club converted two of its greens into a roller hockey pitch that not only now hosts the SRHL games but also roller derbies, skating for kids and, most recently, basketball.

Another disused green has been given over to a community garden project.

Cameron explain “the view is community over commerce; they need to become hubs, community hubs.”

Reducing its reliance on volunteers to do the day-to-day operations has also been key to the bowling club's revival, with Cameron adding “there is more a focus on running it as a business with certain goals and being able to be in a position to reinvest in the club.

"With bowls, we have halved the fees for next year on the basis that they don't need to worry about it."

Image: Two of Bayswater Bowling Club's greens are now used for roller hockey. Courtesy of Street Roller Hockey League/Facebook.

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