Melanie Jones joins the Bowls Australia Board
Bowls Australia have today announced that former Australian cricketer Melanie Jones has joined the Board of the sport’s governing body as an Appointed Director, effective immediately. Jones, who played five test matches and 61 one-day international matches for Australia between 1997 and 2005, is now a talent management specialist and sports marketer with Elite Sports Properties and brings a wealth of domestic and international expertise to Bowls Australia ranging from vast experiences at grassroots level to high performance environments. “I am delighted to welcome Melanie to the Board of Bowls Australia and look forward to having her expertise both as an elite athlete and senior sports administrator in all Board discussions,” Bowls Australia President Des Skinner said. “I believe that Melanie’s list of personal achievements as an athlete and her professional experiences will complement the existing skills we currently have on our Board and she comes to Bowls Australia at a most important time in the development of our sport.” Jones was a member of Australia’s successful 1997 and 2005 Cricket World Cup campaigns and the 1998 and 2004 Ashes victories and is Victoria’s most capped female cricketer with 142 games for her state to her credit. She has also been a regular commentator with the International Cricket Council’s host broadcaster, STAR Sports and provided expert commentary on international matches played in Australia on Fox Sports and free-to-air rights holders since 2000. “Bowls boasts one of the highest participation rates of any sport in this country and it is one of Australia’s iconic and quintessential community-based sports with almost 2000 clubs nationwide providing a great footprint to springboard the sport into the future,” Jones said. “The opportunity to join the Board of Bowls Australia at such an exciting but also critical time in the development and growth of the sport is one that I embrace and I look forward to contributing my experiences and expertise to the Board to continue to grow the sport of bowls.”
