Helen Stallard – Member World Bowls Laws & Constitution Committee

In a huge recognition of her knowledge, her skills and her experience, Helen Stallard has been appointed to the World Bowls Laws & Constitution Committee.

It’s a real feather in her cap.  And Helen is looking forward to coming to grips with this new challenge, which comes on top of her existing roles with both indoor and outdoor bowls at Bowls New Zealand.

“The committee is responsible for overseeing the laws of the game,” explains Helen.  “For reactively reviewing suggestions for changes that come from the worldwide bowls community, and proactively recommending changes to the board and the annual general meeting.”

“It’s also responsible for interpreting those laws, and fostering a high level of understanding of the laws amongst the international bowls community.”

Many bowlers may be surprised to learn that such a committee even exists … they may never have even noticed any changes in the laws of the game while they’ve been playing.

And that would be understandable.  Bowls does tend to be a ‘quiet’ game in terms of change … particularly compared to other sports like rugby where the laws seemed to be relentlessly and continuously debated.  Every year for instance, there seems to be a new ruling on how straight the ball needs to be fed into the scrum or thrown into a lineout!

“Our laws do change though,” says Helen. “Perhaps more subtly.  One recent example was the fact that if a skip stops his own team’s bowl from reaching the head, then that team forfeits the whole game rather than just losing that particular bowl.”

“Bigger changes have happened in the past,” Helen adds.  “For example, the idea of having a universal set of laws recognised in every bowls-playing country didn’t come in until quite recently.  Before then, countries were left to their own devices.”

“Those first international laws were published in ‘The Laws of the Sport’ in 2008.  It’s the game’s ‘Bible’ … 60 laws of the game encapsulated in an A6 booklet of 110 pages.  There’s been two new editions since then … a revision in 2011 and one in 2015.  The 4^th edition is about to come out next year, and will be in effect in New Zealand from 1^st April 2023.”

“However, there wont be any really noticeable changes … the new edition contains what I’d describe as 20 or so tidy-ups which everyone should understand very easily.  The committee puts a lot of effort into ensuring that it’s in plain English, and not…