Beth Boyd

Beth’s First involvement was at Ballina bowl in 1996, her boys joined a league as they lived in Evans Head at the time. Moved back to Murwillumbah in January 1997 and the boys joined the Saturday morning leagues at the then Sunshine Bowl.

Joined the Gold Coast Junior Committee in April of 1997. In her time with the Junior Committee, she was a delegate and Junior Guardian for Tweed, then Secretary and then Chairperson of the Junior Committee until it folded in 2006. In that time, she also had trained as a coach and trained numerous Gold Coast teams across all divisions until it folded. During this time, she coached at Gold Coast Superbowl for a junior league and the Bethany Care Disability league and took a group away for the first time in 2006. She had been involved in disabilities for about 4 years at this stage. 2002 was when she was asked by the TBAQ disability committee to come on board as a delegate for Tweed and subsequently Superbowl.

In 2004 she was elected as Chairperson of the state committee and has held the position to present day. In 2014 TBA asked if she would go onto the Joint Management Committee for the National Championships for bowlers with a disability, she has been on this committee since then and has witnessed the growth of respect between the 2 groups and they now have a great combined team running the Nationals. In 2013 saw the first inclusion of Disability athletes at the able-bodied nationals in Townsville in the Restricted and Rachuig Team Challenges. A proud moment for her as her son Michael was selected for the Restricted All Abilities team. They have had an All-Abilities team in these Nationals until the Adult Nationals were changed recently.

Along with her involvement with the JMC, she was asked to be a part of the national advisory panel for selection of athletes with a disability for the first Inclusion NTS and for an Australian team to compete at the Para world cup on the Sunshine Coast in November. TBA also has held the first Inclusion masters at orange, whilst there weren’t many competitors the word is now out that there are pathways, and the interest is growing. There will be more opportunities for inclusion bowlers in the future, exciting times ahead.

2004 saw her taking the reins as Chairperson and Tournament Director. She was selected to be one of the coaches/managers for the disability Queensland teams in 2008 and has been at least coaching a team right up to present day. She trained originally as a coach in 1998 and is now a bronze level after completing the USBC requirement in 2014.

Now in terms of highlights, there have been many with the state teams and also with watching a new bowler grow and learn, through bowl patrol, bowl abilities and joining leagues and going on to compete in tournaments and eventual representative bowling. the smiles on their faces when they achieve a new PB or keeping it on the lanes and hitting the pins is priceless and makes her day and gives her so much joy.

Beth when speaking on her resume says “To my proudest moment in the sport, it would have to be what we are achieving now with inclusion for our bowlers, our Nationals, JMC and advisory panel all working towards the one goal, of giving our bowlers the same opportunities that every other bowler has within our sport, NTS and Australian representative opportunities”.