MIRAFLORES BOWLS CLUB
   By Pam Shemmings

Oh what a laugh we had! For those observant fans of this magazine you will no doubt recall last year's printers error in calling us the BOWELS CLUB (in the English edition only). But no, we are indeed the BOWLS CLUB situated on the Sports Complex of the lovely Miraflores development, and have been here as the present Club for the past eleven years.

Every year has seen growth, not only from ex-pats moving to the Costa del Sol and becoming members, but the increase in visitors playing on a daily basis, whether on holiday here at Miraflores, through timeshare or ownership, or the surrounding area.

This is due not only to the increased popularity of the game here on the Costa, but to our new bar staff Carol and Grant Frost who took over the premises last September and have made a name for themselves in looking after all the members and visitors, knowing most of the daily players by name and making them very welcome. We pride ourselves on our friendliness as a Club and the staffs have certainly kept up the good work in this direction.

Well, what has been happening over the past season? Our Champions Derek Shemmings and Doreen Macdonald (she made it at last) did not quite pull of the Championship of the coast, but the competition is always very tough.

Our Ladies versus Gents Match on Mothering Sunday was once again a triumph for the Ladies, and if you think they "let us win", think again folks, because they would just love to pull it off one year.

We said a fond farewell to two of our most loyal and oldest members of 18 years Monty and Betty Wess last November who returned to the U.K. for family reasons. We shall miss them, but understand they are settling down well, although Monty misses his Bowls here at Miraflores.

Congratulations to Roy and Lynn Nokes on celebrating their Silver wedding in June and we shall have four Octogenarians - plus as members who play fairly regularly.

Our Open Competition this year was a great success. We were pleased to support the Crystal House Charity and would like to thank Ole Sigurdsson for his generous prizes for the raffles, along with other sponsors on the coast. In January our annual charity day was also a tremendous success and we raised a considerable sum of money for the Tsunami fund sending it to the charity Manacare in Marbella, where we know, through a friend, that it is going to help an orphanage in Sri Lanka direct.

Our touring team from abroad still continue to find Miraflores the best place to play Bowls on the coast; they have come from the U.K., Canada and the U.S.A. Many of the teams ask their Tour Operators if they can play at Miraflores twice because they like the facilities and friendliness of the members and we have a couple of teams from the South of England who have been coming now for 18 years!

Once again we held our Presentation of prizes evening at the Miraflores Restaurant and danced the night away to our good friend "Neil Diamond".

It has been quite a year!!!!