HONG KONG—After a massive reshuffle last year, the management team of the Hong Kong Lawn Bowls Association remained unchanged when all the officers were re-elected at the Annual General Meeting on Monday, Sept 11, 2017.
Last year four officers took up new positions within the Association but there were no challenges to any position this year.
President Vincent Cheung will serve his 19th term to lead the association and his top priorities this year will be on the bidding for the 2024 World Bowls Championship and the newly created Bowls Academy program, “We have held initial discussions with World Bowls regarding the organization of the major event and the feedback so far is very positive. As this initiative is also endorsed by the Home Affairs Bureau supported by a number of clubs, we will be putting forward an aggressive proposal to meet World Bowls’ deadline of November.”
He believes that HKLBA’s experience in staging the World Singles Champion of Champions, World Cup Singles and Asian Lawn Bowls Championship could help convince World Bowls that Hong Kong is the right place to organize this highest-ranking lawn bowls event in the world.
Once this application is confirmed, a longer-term plan to train a competitive team for the tournament will be introduced.
The other focus of the year will be to push forward the Bowls Academy Program for the education sector.
The program was kicked off three weeks ago at Kowloon Cricket Club, one of the early endorser. It aims at increasing the bowls population from the younger generation through two channels, the first is to help the participating clubs to attract and train their young players, and the second step involves proactively approaching the primary and secondary schools to encourage participation.
“To achieve such goals, the HKLBA will need additional manpower to manage these projects and I am glad that the government has agreed to provide us with extra funding for hiring of an additional Sport Executive.
