Bingo _ the Invermay Bowling Club is born

Written by David Polkinghorne for the Ballarat Courier – JANUARY 29 2009

EVER wondered what was required to build a bowls club?

All you need is dedicated people, some land and bingo that is how the Invermay Bowling Club was born.

Jim Templar is a foundation member of the club, which was built in 1992, and started playing pennant in 1994. “Originally we bought the land with the Bungaree Shire,” he said. “After that the hall was done with volunteer labour and money and what have you. Then I retired … and the wife and I went around Australia for five months. When we came back there was that much money in the kitty they said, `you’d better put a bowling green down’.” The “kitty” was $140,000 raised by the Invermay Progress Association, which began in the early 60s, mainly through running bingo nights. And they built the greens because they could. “(It was) an excess of money, pure and simple.”

In the two years between being built and the formation of the club, it was used as a public bowling green costing bowlers and crackerjacks alike the stately sum of $1 per day. Templar had only been bowling for about four years and sought assistance from experts. “I had no idea what I was doing,” the 73-year-old said. “But I had a lot of good people. “I wasn’t a good bowler. I’d only been bowling about four years. I didn’t know what a green had to be and they didn’t know because it was synthetic. They came out here and a couple of them were premier division bowlers in Ballarat at the time. They’d bowl there for an hour, they’d bowl diagonally, across it, up it and down it.`Oh there’s something wrong there’, and I wouldn’t have known.”

Six names spring to the retired car and wagon builder’s mind. Ken Scull and Ken Gullick helped with a lot of the construction, such as hours and hours of rolling. Col McIvor and George Pike organised the group of bowlers who tested the green. Max Sanders gave advice on the layout of the green and George Mouser drew up the club’s constitution. Templar was the inaugural club champion in 1994/95, and has played in three of the club’s premierships. With bingo ending earlier this millennium, times are a bit tougher at Invermay. “We’re struggling like all bowling clubs, apart from the big ones.” Templar thinks his club may just be the youngest bowling club in Victoria. He is also a reluctant skipper. “I’m skipping in division four. I shouldn’t be, I’m too old, too buggered.” His wife Norma is heavily involved in women’s bowls past president, and former and current treasurer. Ethan Boulch, his 16-year-old grandson, is a member of the Ballarat Gold Diggers (a bowls youth development squad) and also plays at Invermay.

NEW BORN BABY: Invermay Bowling Club’s Jim Templar is a foundation member of the club. Picture: Jeremy Bannister