In a historic move to keep up with the times, the Parkes Bowling and Sports Club has a new modern bowls structure that now incorporates both the former ladies and men's bowls committees into one unified committee.
Endorsed at separate meetings and voting under the watch of an independent scrutineer, the ladies and mens’ committees are now unified.
This means there is now just the one committee responsible for coordinating, promoting and organising bowls and associated bowls events at the club.
Over the club's 104-year history, the two committees have always been separate when the ladies joined the rinks three decades later with Gwyn Rice the first ladies president in 1951.
The unification committee is headed by Liz Byrne as President, Colin Miller is Vice President, Natalie Hancock and Tony Riordan are Secretary and Assistant Secretary respectively, with committee members being Maureen Miller, Michael Went, Mark Dwyer, Jacob Townsend and Naomi Hancock.
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The journey to unification was a 12-month body of work undertaken by a small committee of Colin and Maureen Miller, Marty Tighe, Tony Riordan and Steve and Lyne Ryan.
This new approach to managing bowls is endorsed, and actively supported by Bowls NSW.
"[We have made this change] to keep moving forward, to keep up with the times," Liz said.
"It's not going to affect the bowls whatsoever - the women will still play their bowls and the men can still do what they want to do.
"A lot of competitions now are open gender."
No stranger to leadership, Liz was the first, and so far the only, female chairperson of the Board of Directors, serving from 2014-2015.
