Southport Bowls Club leading the way with Jack Attack
Australian Open host club Southport Bowls Club have been running highly successful Jack Attack programs which has led to an increase in membership If you get the opportunity to play at Southport Bowling Club during your time at the Australian Open be sure to ask their members and staff about their highly successful Jack Attack program, aimed at increasing participation and membership in their club.
Southport Bowling Club has certainly embraced Jack Attack and are now reaping the benefits of a constant flow of barefoot bowlers on their greens and a fantastic conversion rate of barefoot bowlers into social and full bowling members.
Jack Attack has been designed to help clubs increase participation which has become a problem for all adult club-based sports across the country.
The format closely resembles the Australian Premier League and as Southport has demonstrated, this program has been able to fill the gap between competitive competitions such as pennant and social barefoot bowlers.
Southport Bowling Club have run eight Jack Attack programs, each for 4-5 weeks, and over that time seen approximately 300 participants try their hand at Lawn Bowls.
Jack Attack at Southport is run mid-week at 6:30pm with a sausage sizzle available for participants and a bit of prize money at the end of the 4-5 week competition to get the competitive juices flowing.
Southport have an amazing ability to convert Jack Attack participants into full bowling members with three now signed up to play a pennant season or premier sevens, a dozen turning up regularly for social bowls and championships and over 100 social members on their books.
The club knew that numbers were dropping and that they needed to take advantage of their great location and have in turn managed to use Jack Attack to attract University students and people still in the work force with a product that has been specifically designed to do just that.
Marcus Yost and Troy Perdue put their first bowls down in February 2015 and both went on to represent the club in pennant that very season and Troy has even got his 10 year old twin sons Taj and Jay involved in Jack Attack.
With the weather starting to cool off Southport have opted to run one day Jack Attack afternoons on a Sunday until the weather warms up again and continue on with their usual 6:30pm midweek time slot.
Through word and mouth, great communication and marketing no doubt Jack Attack will continue to grow at Southport Bowls Club and there is no reason why it can’t help grow your club’s membership as well.
For more information about Jack Attack visit the website www.jackattack.com.au
