More paperwork for bowling clubs

Bowling News

One club official contacted me about a page on the BCGBA website and he was wondering why he hasn't ever seen it before. The website mentions two forms (CR1 and CR2) that have to be completed annually by every bowling club and then sent on to the County Association. He wonders if it is just his club that is unaware of this annual ritual and are they the odd club out in not complying with this BCGBA requirement.

A closer look shows that all this information is just duplicating the data required to complete a club's entry on the JustGo system but that is another story covered further down. The whole matter of clubs' compliance with data collection and annual returns seems to be a real mess completely of the making of the BCGBA.

Is your club completing and submitting these two forms on an annual basis or are they totally unaware of their existence? Want to share your views on this?

Scroll down for more news on this topic and how it impacts on the £1 Levy situation.

Extract from the BCGBA website

Whilst putting this topic into writing I tried finding some more information about these CR1 and CR2 forms and looked at a number of County websites. Starting with Yorkshire CCGBA and despite there being a section devoted to Forms there was no reference to these forms. That wasn't a surprise as the Latest News posting was an announcement of the passing of Derrick Radley. Derrick passed away in June 2023.

Derbyshire CCGBA and Cheshire CCGBA both carried copies of the forms as did the BCGBA website and that of the Welsh Crown Green Bowling Association. However I couldn't find any mention of the forms on the county websites for South Yorkshire, Shropshire or Lancashire.

What I did find on the Derbyshire website was an interesting record of over 6,000 bowlers registered with the County in 2025. It was possible to sort these 6,000 names by club.

Just think if Yorkshire had access to such information, then it would be a straightforward task to send out accurate club bills to fund the £1 Levy per bowler that has been made the responsibility of County Associations.

Oh! - but the County Associations already have that access! It is on the JustGo system which permits County Associations to download records as shown by that on the Derbyshire County website. So why are we still scrambling around trying to pull such information together which the County already has? Beyond belief!

Give me the level of access that Yorkshire CCGBA has on JustGo and within one hour I could produce a list of every Yorkshire clubs' bowlers and how much each club owed as their £1 levy dues. I am sure that the total number of bowlers would exceed the 6,000 number on the Derbyshire version but it is not a difficult task. The data is alreay computerised it just needs sorting by club which any spreadsheet can complete in seconds. From there the spreadsheet can readily sort out any duplicate records. I could do that. Now there is an offer that Yorkshire CCGBA will refuse.

That prompts another question. How many clubs have been contacted by Yorkshire CCGBA about the £1 Levy and asked to submit details of all their registered bowlers? The County asked some clubs for this in October. That was supposed to provide numbers for the clubs to be invoiced against. It was to be £1 for each bowler. Has any club successfully completed this exercise and how happy are they that this is a fair reflection of payment of their current membership?