Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

But, Mr Deputy Speaker, 60 years of continuous operation for an organisation—an achievement for any sporting organisation—run by volunteers from a small community at St Helens in my electorate of Lyons is, indeed, a good story. But the modern story of the St Helens Bowls Club is much more than that. With President, Mark Dickinson, Vice President, Steve Park and Secretary, Gary Laycock, at the helm, the club has developed close relations with the St Helens District High School across the road. A regular part of the bowls club week is its school program. One hundred students from both the primary and high schools play bowls as part of their curriculum over the summer terms.

School children also play bowls at the club as part of the ongoing federally funded Active After-school Communities program. St Helens is the only bowls club on Tasmania's east coast with a synthetic green. The club was started in 1954 on land donated by Mrs Gertrude Johnson. Mrs Johnson, Tom Haley and Alfred Green were already trustees of the St Helens Tennis Club, which bordered the land. The original bowling green was built with the help of machinery from Ansons timber mill and the hard work of inaugural members Frank Wooley, Charles Fish and Jim Morling. St Helens Bowls Club members in 2014 represent the whole of their community—from players as young as nine years old to the club's oldest member, Norman Brook, aged 82. All are actively engaged. The St Helens Bowls Club has much to celebrate on its 60th anniversary, and I offer those involved my heartiest congratulations.

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