Vivian Berkeley

Berkeley delivers a lawn bowl, as her coach Don Mayne looks on. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Berkeley with her 2007 BBAC Nationals Gold Medal. Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Vivian Berkeley (born August 9, 1941) is a Canadian blind lawn bowler, 1996 Paralympic silver medalist.^[1] Berkeley is the #1 ranked women's singles B1 blind lawn bowler in the world.

Career

Berkeleys' Lawn Bowling career began almost 25 years ago. She started off playing at the Rockway Lawn Bowling Club in Kitchener, Ontario. However this club closed its doors in the late 1990s to make room for the expansion of its golf course. The following year, a new local Lawn Bowling Club, Heritage Greens, opened. Vivian started off her career by competing at Provincial and National levels for several years, then qualified and finally competed on the International level at such prestigious events as the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta, USA, and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. She has continuously competed in International Blind Lawn Bowling events since then and has earned the ranking of the World's #1 Female Total Blind Lawn Bowler on several occasions. Berkeley continues to lawn bowl and won the gold medal in the Women's B1 (completely blind) Singles at the 2008 and again at the 2009 Blind Bowls Association of Canada (BBAC) Nationals in Windsor, Ontario. Berkeley returned with a silver medal from an International Lawn Bowling Tournament in Sydney, Australia and attended an International Lawn Bowling Competition for the Blind and Physically Disabled in Israel in May 2010, coming home with the silver medal. Also, Berkeley recently attended an International Bowls for All Disabilities Tournament in South Africa in 2011, where she added to her medal collection with a silver. Vivians' next tournament was the Nationals in Kitchener, Ontario in July 2011.

Personal life

Berkeley was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. She received her primary and secondary schooling at the Halifax School for the Blind, where she graduated in the mid 1950s. She is married to Richard, has 2 children (Laura and Michael), and one grandchild.

Berkeley participates on several boards/committees within the region of Waterloo including: Block Parents, Fire and Safety Committee, The Royal Canadian Legion, Lions Club of Canada, Lioness Club of Canada, Canadian Council of the Blind, and Blind Bowls Association of Canada (created by Berkeley for blind lawn bowlers in Canada). In May 2009, she was elected to the International Blind Bowls Association World Executive.

References