Swindon Bats in Sheffield - 9th June 2007

From left to right: Pete Mead, Richard Carver, Rebecca Pike, Gordon Chapman, Tom Rawlings, Tracey Nash, Derrick Smith, Nicky Newport, Cliff Moss, Sue Mead,

Trevor Johns, Pat Johns, Russell Riggs, Sarah Smith 

It’s hard to believe that Swindon Bats is 20 years old!

On 15 February 2006, several visually impaired people met at the Swindon Superbowl (now Tenpin Swindon) to take part in a ‘have a go day’ at tenpin bowling.  This event had been organised by British Blind Sport in conjunction with Wiltshire Blind Association (now Wiltshire Sight).  At the end of this session, six of these visually impaired people (Trevor Johns, Derek Smith, Nicky Newport, Tracey Nash, Russ Riggs and Sue Mead) decided they would like to get together on a weekly basis to play a couple of games of tenpin bowling, and so Swindon Bats was born. 

When choosing a name for the group, there were several suggestions but Swindon Bats was chosen as it was agreed that the group were all as blind as bats!  At that time, there was one carer / helper, Pat Johns (wife of Trevor), who helped in any way she could. 

Later that year, a few more V.I. members of the community (Cliff Moss, Tom Rawlings and Gordon Chapman) joined the group along with another sighted helper, Richard Carver, who still volunteers for us today. 

In June 2007, the group took part in the British Blind Sport Tenpin Winter Fours finals in Sheffield.  They travelled to Sheffield in a coach which was organised to take a V.I. tenpin bowling team from Salisbury as well as Swindon Bats.  This was a national competition and one of our two teams who took part (Derek, Russ, Gordon and Sue) finished in 3^rd place. 

In 2011, it became necessary for the group to become registered with the Charity Commission, and Swindon Bats became a charity in it’s own right.  Over the last few years, Swindon Bats has branched out and is getting involved in lots of other activities including lawn and indoor bowls, showdown, indoor kurling, skittles, as well as enjoying meals out, theatre trips and other social activities.  Having begun with 6 visually impaired members, we now have 37 plus 19 sighted volunteers/carers/helpers, making a total of 56 members. 

Long may this small local charity thrive and continue to support visually impaired people in Swindon and surrounding areas.

During the Summer of 2023 Bats Chairperson Becky and her husband Uan managed to complete their very own Salt Path Challenge and raised an incredible £2,000 for Swindon Bats. Their total distance covered from Weston Super-Mare to Minehead ended up a staggering 54 miles exactly with a total walking time of 18 hours over 4 days.

This year Becky and Uan are back and this time they plan on racing across the South West to get from Penzance in Cornwall back to Swindon in Wiltshire in just 5 days, sounds easy enough right!?

Except the only form of transport they will have available to them is Walking and Becky's trusty Disabled bus pass! 

Think BBCs Race Across The World but on The UK Buses!

For many Blind and Visually impaired people in particular a Concessionary/Disabled bus pass is a life line and can give individuals a route out of isolation. 

So with this in mind Becky who is registered severely sight impaired/blind and her sighted husband Uan will be taking on the mammoth challenge of navigating through 5 counties (Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Bath and NE Somerset and Wiltshire) in a race to get back home in just 5 days!

They will start their journey by catching a train to Penzance setting off on a Tuesday morning to return by Saturday. With no overnight accommodation booked they will need to find accommodation or take their chances with some wild camping along the way!

Please donate if you can via the link below. Anything big or small is incredibly welcome. Swindon Bats relies solely on funding from fundraising and grants so every little helps!

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/xnZ9ZqgW 

Thank you! 

Monday 19th of May was a very exciting night for everybody here at Swindon Bats. It was our annual inter company match where Swindon Bats play bowling alongside local community groups. This year was our biggest one yet, an amazing 14 lanes and  82 attendees.

A special thank you to teams from seven different organizations: Arval, Hilliers Funeral Service, Rutpen Ltd, Midcounties Co-operative, The Openwork Partnership, Swindon Bats, and Zurich. Your enthusiasm and sportsmanship were truly inspiring!

Congratulations to Midcounties Co-operative 1 for clinching the victory with 1355 points between them. 
We can’t wait for next year and hopefully it will be bigger and better than ever.

Special thanks  go to Becky, Sue, and all the volunteers for their hard work leading up to and on the night of the event. Overall, more than £800 was raised which, for a charity as small as ours, is incredible. 

Thursday 15th May saw two Bats teams travel up to Sheffeild for the annual finals of the Winter Trios bowling championship: 

Bats Tornados: Becky, Russ, Tracy, Dave

Bats Strikers: Shaun, Sam and John 

Both teams worked very hard to get to the finals and we are all very proud of them. Accompanied by Michelle, Bats volenteer.The teams played incredibly well all day, this was reflected in the awards meal that was held that evening. overall the results were:

Bats Tornados came 9th place, and Bats Strikers came 5th place! Our very own Becky won highest female handicap and a wonderful surprise when Michelle was awarded best volunteer! 

All round a fantastic result - and with the Winter pairs about to start keep everythin crossed that we have another successful year of bowling. 

Swindon Bats had a fantastic opportunity this month to experience a fully accessible Cycling session at The Moredon Sporting Hub. 

5 Visually Impaired riders and 2 Bats Volunteers got to try their hand at a selection of adapted bikes and trikes looping around the incredible purpose built track. 

The session was great fun and fully accessible for all abilities and levels. The volunteer pilots and staff were a fantastic help and really kind. The Sports Hub and Limitless Swindon work really hard to put these fantastic groups on to make Sport as accessible as possible. 

Everyone had a brilliant time! We can't wait to go back and hopefully get a regular VI session up and running very soon!

Thank you to everyone at Moredon Sports Hub for having us, we've definitely caught the Cycling bug!

On Monday 24th of February, 14 Bowlers, 9 Spotters and 2 Scorers from Swindon Bats met with 13 members of Hilliers Funeral Service to play our second ever friendly match. 

Needless to say there were so many of us we practically took over Tenpin with no fewer than 9 lanes needed! And the evening certainly didn't disappoint, both games were really close and very exciting! 

But the scores were certainly looking different this time around compared to last years Bats triumph.

Swindon Bats were crowned the winners of the first game. But Hilliers stormed in during the second game taking the win from under the Bats feet! 

Final scores for the evening were: 

8 to Swindon Bats

8 to Hilliers Funeral Service.

Making the overall match a Draw. 

Highest score for Bats:

Ali with 150

Highest score for Hilliers:

Tracy with 131

The girls clearly showing us all how its done, well done ladies on some incredible scores! Hilliers team have definitely upped their game this year! Congratulations everyone on some fantastic bowling.  

There was much laughter and fun all round when the specialist replica VI eyewear came out and Guide dogs Tyler, Robyn and Bryony certainly all enjoyed all their fusses.

We hope that everyone at Hilliers Funeral Services enjoyed their time Bowling with the Bats as much as we all did.

Thank you to every one who joined us for making it such a fun evening. Heres to next year! 

Becky could be heard on the Sue Davies show talking about two young children that went out of their way to help a visually impaired person in Swindon.

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Updated: 12th February 2026