Recently, the United States Bowling Congress has announced changes its youth program, including but not limited to the lowering of the maximum age for bowler eligibility from twenty-one to nineteen as of 1 August of the current bowling season - a change which is to take affect immediately with the 2009-10 bowling season. This change has seemingly been made with little-to-no correspondence with those who are directly affected and has not allowed appropriate time for those who are affected to either A) articulate an appropriate response to the situation by voicing their opinions on the matter or B) change their plans for the future of their bowling careers, which might have already been decided some time prior. In fact, this change was only announced this past February - a whole six months prior to the start of the new season and only a little over a month prior to the end of most league seasons. However, even though it has been just over a month since the announcement of this change, it is still widely unknown to most members of the USBC - youth and otherwise. In fact, many associations are not even aware of this change and therefore cannot inform their bowlers that they may have to join an adult league next year, so they had better make the best of their last few weeks of the season. It seems that this new change to the USBC Youth program has slid under the radar as it has not appeared in any bowling magazines - USBC related or otherwise, has not been directly addressed via a newsletter or mailing, and has not even been made a top news story on Bowl.com, even though it affects such a large portion of USBC Youth Members - especially Junior Gold. The circumstances regarding this issue are largely responsible for its blatant unfairness, although it cannot truly be said that this new change is all that fair to begin with. It is our duty as active members of the USBC to voice our opinions and make ourselves heard. The USBC has made this decision without consulting those affected, and we cannot tolerate that.

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