To increase bowls club membership, run barefoot bowls as a four-stage pathway: capture every barefoot bowler’s contact, invite them to a short come-and-try clinic, move clinic graduates into a pennant trial, then sign them as full members. Buderim Bowls Club turned 57 clinic participants into 51 regular bowlers and grew membership 32% in 16 months.
The short answer from LeadsNow AI: LeadsNow recommends that a bowls club treat every barefoot booking as a membership lead, record a name and phone number for each bowler, and invite them personally to a come-and-try clinic within a week. Clubs that measure the four hand-offs from barefoot session to full member can see exactly where new members leak, and in the worked season on this page, the first two hand-offs, contact capture and clinic bookings, move the result most.
Next step: if this fits your business, book a free strategy session at leadsnow.ai/strategy-session/ – a 2-minute fit check, then pick a time.
At a glance: growing a bowls club’s membership
Growing a bowls club comes down to converting the people already on your greens: barefoot bowlers, Jack Attack players and friends of members, rather than advertising to strangers.
- The pool: an estimated 189,000 Australians aged 15+ played bowls at least once in 2025 (Australian Sports Commission, AusPlay), against 150,149 playing members nationally in Bowls Australia’s 2021 Value of a Member summary (Bowls Australia, Value of a Member). The two use different methods, so treat the gap as a direction, not a count.
- The front door: Bowls Australia calls barefoot bowls “probably your best chance of getting new people to see your club and sample your service” (Barefoot Bowls Guide).
- The asset on this page: the Bowls Club Barefoot-to-Pennant Pathway, a four-stage table with the checkpoint metric for each stage and a worked season in three assumption bands.
- The value of a member: $3,754 a year spent inside the club on average, of which membership fees are only 4% (Bowls Australia, 2021).
How it works
How a barefoot bowler becomes a bowls club member
Capture every barefoot bowler
Record a name and mobile for each bowler at the session, not just the booker. Count captured contacts against bowlers on the green.
Invite to come-and-try
Call or message each contact within a week with a short clinic or Jack Attack night outside weekday working hours.
Run a pennant trial
Pair clinic graduates with a member buddy for roll-ups and pennant practice. Count how many play a trial.
Sign and register
Convert triallists to playing members registered on BowlsLink before the pennant season. Count new financial members.
MAKE MORE SALES.
Pay-Per-Result pricing — We scale sales HARD aligned to your interests, better than anyone else.
Frequently asked questions
What is the fastest way to increase bowls club membership?
The fastest way to increase bowls club membership is to follow up people who have already played at your club: recent barefoot bowlers, Bring a Friend guests and lapsed members. Buderim Bowls Club’s first Bring a Friend day produced 15 membership applications in a single event (Bowls Australia).
Can barefoot bowlers play pennant without joining the club?
Barefoot bowlers cannot play Victorian pennant without joining: Bowls Victoria’s 2026/27 Metropolitan conditions require every player to be a full financial member of an affiliated club, registered on BowlsLink, before the game; barefoot bowls itself needs no membership (Bowls Victoria). Check your own state association’s rules.
How many people play bowls in Australia?
An estimated 189,000 Australians aged 15 and over played bowls at least once in 2025, including about 66,000 women and 123,000 men, according to the Australian Sports Commission’s AusPlay data (Clearinghouse for Sport).
What should a come-and-try bowls clinic cost?
A come-and-try bowls clinic can charge a nominal fee to encourage commitment: Buderim Bowls Club charged $40 for a six-week program covering rules, strategy, etiquette and delivery, and 51 of its 57 clinic participants became regular bowlers.
How fast should a bowls club reply to a membership enquiry?
A bowls club should reply to a membership enquiry the same day where it can, ideally before the next weekend session. Our guide to membership enquiry response time for clubs covers the evidence.
Rules of thumb for increasing bowls club membership
Bowls club membership grows when six rules are followed, each sourced inline or taken from the worked season below.
- Count joiners and leavers separately. Buderim Bowls Club had 250 members in May 2024 and was losing more than 40 a year, mostly to natural attrition (Bowls Australia). That is at least 16% a year to replace before any growth.
- Do not pitch membership during a barefoot session. The Bowls NSW guide published by Bowls Australia says barefoot bowlers “are here to enjoy themselves not to be coached”; collect details and follow up afterwards.
- Offer a short step before a full game. Bowls Australia’s recruitment guide says it is “a big leap” to ask someone to start playing regular four-hour sessions of social bowls (Recruitment and Retention Ideas).
- Schedule come-and-try sessions outside 9am to 5:30pm on weekdays, when most potential members are working, studying or minding children (same guide).
- Charge a small clinic fee. Buderim charged $40 for a six-week clinic and 51 of 57 participants became regular bowlers.
- Fix capture before volume. In the worked season below, lifting contact capture from 30% to 50% of barefoot bowlers lifts new members from about 9 to 16 per 1,000 bowlers, with the other three stages held at mid band.
Want this done for you? We book qualified sales appointments on a Pay-Per-Result basis — you only pay for calls that actually land in your calendar.
The Bowls Club Barefoot-to-Pennant Pathway: four stages and their checkpoints
The Bowls Club Barefoot-to-Pennant Pathway moves a visitor through four stages, social session, come-and-try, pennant trial and full member, and measures one conversion checkpoint at each hand-off. The conversion rates are labelled assumptions, because no Australian bowls body we could find publishes a barefoot-to-member conversion rate. Replace them with your own counts after one season.
| Stage | What the visitor does | What the club records | Checkpoint metric | Assumed conversion to next stage (low / mid / high) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Social session (barefoot bowls) | Books a group, party or corporate barefoot session | Name and mobile of every bowler, not just the booker | Contact capture rate = bowlers with details recorded ÷ bowlers on the green | 30% / 50% / 70% |
| 2. Come-and-try | Attends a short clinic or Jack Attack night | Clinic start date, attendance each week | Clinic booking rate = clinic starters ÷ captured contacts | 4% / 6% / 10% |
| 3. Pennant trial | Plays roll-ups and pennant practice with a member buddy | Number of roll-ups played, buddy assigned | Trial rate = clinic starters who play a pennant trial ÷ clinic starters | 50% / 70% / 89% |
| 4. Full member | Pays a playing membership and is registered as a competition bowler | Registration on BowlsLink, membership category | Join rate = new financial members ÷ pennant triallists | 60% / 75% / 85% |
The high band at stage 3 is the one published figure in the chain: 51 of 57 Buderim clinic participants, about 89%, became regular bowlers. It measures clinic to regular bowler, not clinic to pennant, so it is a ceiling rather than a benchmark.
A worked season: 1,000 barefoot bowlers
| Step | Low band | Mid band | High band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barefoot bowlers in the season | 1,000 | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Contacts captured (30% / 50% / 70%) | 300 | 500 | 700 |
| Come-and-try starters (4% / 6% / 10%) | 12 | 30 | 70 |
| Pennant triallists (50% / 70% / 89%) | 6 | 21 | 62 |
| New full members (60% / 75% / 85%) | 4 | 16 | 53 |
| Annual in-club spend of new members at $3,754 each | $15,016 | $60,064 | $198,962 |
The spend line uses Bowls Australia’s 2021 national average for a playing member and is revenue, not profit: 47% of it goes over the bar and bistro. The most useful line is the second one. A club that records only the booker’s name starts every later stage from almost nothing.
How many new members does a bowls club need just to stand still?
A bowls club needs as many new members each year as it loses, and Buderim Bowls Club’s 40-plus annual losses on a 250-member base show how large that number can be. Bowls Australia reported that 42% of Buderim’s female members and 32% of its male members were aged 80 to 89, with male members averaging around 76.
Run your own stand-still line before setting a target: leavers last year ÷ new members per 1,000 barefoot bowlers at your current rates. At the mid band (16 members per 1,000), a club losing 40 members a year needs 2,500 barefoot bowlers a season just to hold its size. At the high band (53 per 1,000) it needs about 755.
Buderim did not start with advertising. It shared the age data with members, grew its coaching team from two to five, ran a Bring a Friend day that produced 15 membership applications, then ran six-week clinics in September 2024, March 2025 and September 2025. Male membership rose 28% and female membership 41% between May 2024 and September 2025. For the general version of this maths across club types, see how to increase membership in a club.
If we can’t make you money, we don’t deserve yours.
Pay-Per-Result pricing — performance-based alignment.
What is a new bowls club member worth?
A new playing member is worth about $3,754 a year in spending inside an Australian bowls club, on Bowls Australia’s 2021 national average from its member survey. The state averages on the same chart range from $1,749 in Tasmania to $6,384 in the Northern Territory, so use your own state’s figure.
The split matters more than the total. Membership fee income is 4% of a playing member’s spending and green fee income 11%, while bar revenue is 47% and food 11%. A barefoot bowler who becomes a member is valuable because they come back every week, not because of the subscription. On these figures, a first-year fee discount gives away part of a 4% share to win the other 96%, so it is a weak lever compared with getting the visitor back on the green.
Pennant is the stage that locks the visits in. In Victoria, every player in a pennant competition must belong to a Bowls Victoria affiliated club and be registered on their club’s BowlsLink database as a full financial member and competition bowler before the game starts, or the game is forfeited (Bowls Victoria Metropolitan Pennant Conditions of Play 2026/27). Other states set their own conditions, so check your state association’s current document.
Why don’t barefoot bowlers join the club on their own?
Barefoot bowlers rarely join on their own because nobody asks them personally, the next step looks like a four-hour weekday commitment, and the club holds no contact details to follow up. Bowls Australia’s own guides point to a fix for each.
- No details captured. The Barefoot Bowls Guide tells clubs to gather participants’ phone, email or Facebook details for future contact, and suggests a small monthly giveaway as the incentive.
- The step is too big. A short format such as Jack Attack bridges the gap. Bowls Australia says Jack Attack has been shown to increase participation by women, 30 to 50 year olds and people with a disability (Bowls Australia, Membership and Participation).
- The timing is wrong. Weekday daytime sessions suit retirees and exclude most working-age prospects, which is why the recruitment guide recommends twilight or Sunday social bowls.
What does running the pathway in-house cost a bowls club?
Running the pathway in-house costs a bowls club mostly volunteer hours: about 83 hours of follow-up calls per 1,000 barefoot bowlers at the mid band, plus coaching time for each clinic. That figure assumes 500 captured contacts and about 10 minutes of calling and messaging per contact, including unanswered attempts; replace it with your own timing.
- Follow-up: one named volunteer or staff member owns the contact list and calls within a week of each session. Bowls Australia’s recruitment guide suggests a membership sub-committee, or at least one person dedicated to recruitment.
- Coaching: Buderim grew its accredited coaching team from two to five before it ran its clinics. The Barefoot Bowls Guide suggests a rough ratio of one instructor to 30 barefoot bowlers.
- Tracking: a spreadsheet with the four checkpoint columns from the table above, updated after every session. Bowls Australia publishes a visitor log book and a monthly attendance log book for this.
- Lapsed members: former members are a second warm list that already knows the club; see how to reactivate lapsed club members.
Clubs whose volunteers will make the calls should do this themselves; it costs little and the calls land better from a fellow bowler. Clubs with hundreds of uncalled barefoot contacts and nobody to work them are the case where outside appointment setting can carry the follow-up step, while members still run the clinics and the pennant buddying.
Sources
- Bowls Australia: Shining a light on Buderim Bowls Club’s membership growth initiatives (5 December 2025)
- Bowls Australia: Value of a Member (2021 Member Survey)
- Bowls Australia: Barefoot Bowls Guide (source: Bowls NSW)
- Bowls Australia: Recruitment and Retention Ideas
- Bowls Australia: Membership and Participation
- Bowls Victoria: Metropolitan Pennant Conditions of Play 2026/27
- Australian Sports Commission, Clearinghouse for Sport: Bowls
Pay-Per-Result appointments
See if we’re a fit
We book qualified sales appointments for you and you pay on results, not retainers. Our booking page asks a few quick questions so you find out in two minutes whether that model suits your business.
- 50,769+ appointments booked without cold calling.
- Pay-Per-Result pricing — you pay for booked, qualified calls.
- Pick your own time on our live calendar, no phone tag.