History of our Club
Life Members
Over the course of the club's 100+ year history, there have been members who have made such an extra-ordinary contribution to the club, they have been honoured with a life membership. A life membership entitles the honouree to the full rights and privileges of a full playing member, but the honouree is exempt from paying any membership fees. The following is a list of the life members of the Kerrisdale Bowls Club and the year in which they were so honoured:
Pat Kost, (right), is the most recently inducted life member, having been honoured in November 2019 by club president Peter Lee.
Another exceptional life member is Isobel Whitaker, a former club president, whose name was originally given to the women's provincial pairs award - the Isobel Whitaker Shield.
Other notable life members included Stanley Carey, a three-time president of the Kerrisdale club and Don McDonald, a former club president and three-time consecutive club men's singles champion.
Life Members
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Kerrisdale Club Presidents
The Kerrisdale Lawn Bowling Club has been fortunate over the past 100-plus years to have had many exceptional individuals serve as club presidents.
Kerrisdale's first-ever president, John Bruce Cowan, was a local historian and playwright. He also wrote a monograph on pioneer western painter John Innes, who was popularly known as the dean of Canadian historical artists.
Francis Bowser, the bowling club's fourth president, was a barrister and reeve of Point Grey from 1910-1911. The building on the SW corner of 41st and West Blvd is called the Bowser Block after Francis. His brother William was an MLA from 1903-1924 and was the premier of BC in 1915-16.
Fred Ellis, who was president in the year World War II came to an end, was one of the club's top bowlers in its history and its first provincial champion. He skipped his fours team to back-to-back provincial fours championships in 1954 and 1955. He was also one of the committee members and umpires for the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver.
Stan Carey has the distinction as being the only person to serve three separate terms as club president.
Isobel Whitaker was the club president in 1957, she also donated the first Provincial Women's Pairs trophy in 1972 - the Isobel Whitaker Shield.
Nancy Bednard was the first coach of the Tsawwassen club (for three years) when they started operations in 1989. They had no one to coach them, since they were just starting from scratch (74 per cent of their charter members had never bowled). Nancy resigned from the board at the end of the 2011 season, having served on the board for 25 consecutive years. Nancy is also one of only three members (Stan Carey being the other) to serve multiple separate terms as club president.
John Aveline not only has served the longest single term as president (five years), but is also the first Kerrisdale club bowler to represent Canada. In 2010, John played in the North American Challenge as part of the Canadian National Team and in 2011 played in the Asia Pacific Championships in Adelaide, Australia, where he was on the men's fours team that won a bronze medal.
Peter Lee is Kerrisdale's current club president.
*Note - In 2013 and 2014, no one individual filled the club presidency per se. For the sake of documents and forms, John Aveline was considered the president. However, the club was managed by a committee, which took on the various tasks required (treasurer, secretary, greens, games, house, etc,).
Women's Club Singles Champions
Dianne Petrant is the current Kerrisdale club women's singles champion, winning the competition for a fourth straight season.
Men's Club Singles Champions
The club's 'champions boards' go back only as far as 1970, but the match committee kept very good records from 1939 to 1963 and for most of those years they recorded the winners of all club competitions, leagues and aggregates. For many years the men's club singles represented the club in the Chambers Singles, which was the provincial singles championships, held during B.C. Week.
John Aveline won his ninth club singles title since 2001.
