Bowls England is committed to ensuring lawn bowls represents and includes all sections of our society. We are aware that our sport is currently not representative of many areas of society and this is a missed opportunity. We must evolve to make our sport better complement modern lifestyles and make interventions to tackle deep-rooted inequality in sports activity.
One of our priorities in our 2021-26 Strategy, Fit for the Future, is to Make Bowls Truly Accessible by opening up the gateways to our sport and to embrace more people, irrespective of their background or circumstances. The physically undemanding nature of our sport, the existence of thousands of clubs nationwide and the relatively low cost of playing means we have some critical elements of success in broadening participation.
We will deliver this priority by developing and implementing a Diversity and Inclusion strategy to ensure our sport is more representative of society. We are embarking on this work in partnership with the Bowls Development Alliance, the development arm of our sport. Helen Slimm, our Head of Business Operations, and Varsha Raboogarsing, our People and Governance Officer, are part of the Inclusion Advisory Group. The Terms of Reference for this group can be found here and its members are here.
In 2022 we have a golden opportunity to showcase bowls and engage a wider cross-section of society. Linked to the work of the Inclusion Advisory Group, we will be proactively looking at ways of making the home Commonwealth Games count.
If you have any ideas or thoughts around Diversity and Inclusion in lawn bowls, or you have any experiences from your time in the sport you’d like to share, please email ourfuture@bowlsengland.com.
Transgender Policies
- Transgender Education Course | Bowls Development Alliance – this is a resource developed by the BDA & Bowls England to help Counties, Clubs and the wider bowls community understand and implement the above policy.