Members will be aware that the Gloucestershire Bowls Association has substantially changed over the last two years in particular. Those changes are enshrined in the new (2025) GBA Constitution, viewable elsewhere on this Website. A significant change is that the Association will no longer produce any traditional publications – things like the two former Divisional Yearbooks and the former GBA Club Handbook. In part this is because of the advent of ‘Gloucestershire Bowls Online’ [known as ‘The GBO’], which will in future be the database on which most of our administrative processes will be constructed – in particular 1) The Affiliation Process, 2) County Match organisation, 3) County Competition administration.
However, while the GBO system does a lot of the routine administration, it can only be seen by the County (through County post-holders with a requirement to see just data relating to their responsibilities), by Clubs (through normally their Club Secretary, who has administrative rights to access and modify their own club’s data) and by Individual users (who can see and use just their own data). So, for any other GBA member seeking Association documentation, County match information and results, County Competition draws and results, that will not be possible without a GBO user account [which all GBA members are entitled to hold, of course].
Consequently, to make GBA information more readily available to all, a change to the GBO system has now been enabled, prior to the 2025 season, where anyone can see certain kinds of information which are capable of being ‘ported’ automatically from the GBO onto this Website, purely for viewing, nothing interactive. This will include certain Club Contact information, GBA fixture lists, County match results, County teams selected, County Competition draws and results.
In general, of the above items, only the Club Contact information is considered to require security and this will be placed in the ‘Members’ Area’ and require the appropriate password to be viewed. The rest can be seen by anyone, as there are no security implications.
The ‘News items’ lower down on this home webpage will be common-access for all Website users. Access will be available on computers, tablets, and smartphones.
Lindsay Collin County Administrator 2025