Rochester Bowls Club president Graham Willis was “over the moon’’ after a fundraising bowls tournament at Moama Bowling Club last week netted his club a $10,000 windfall.
“It is mind-boggling. Moama (Bowling Club) was the first one to come to our aide and bent over backwards to do something for us,” he said.
The fours event involved more than 100 bowlers contesting three rounds of 12 ends, with $3000 in prizemoney on offer for the event.
Moama Bowling Club supplied lunch, prize money and auctioned off a shirt signed by all players involved in the December Ultimate Bowls Challenge event.
Initially the Moama club was prepared to offer support via its greenkeeping staff working on the flooded site, but complications with equipment meant that was impossible.
Eventually the clubs decided to stage a fundraising event, which attracted teams from the Goulburn Valley and Bendigo Campaspe Goldfields.
The event was organised in less than two weeks and the eventual winners of the $1000 first prize was the Moama Steamers team led by champion bowler Marilyn Stephenson.
They narrowly accounted for the team skipped by Steve Cunnington, while the teenage Kyabram team of the Cartwright and Boswood brothers finished third.
Other top finishing teams were Merv Harvey’s four and the Rich River teams skipped by Jason McLoy and Trevor Nagorcka.