It had been a great asset to Oamaru, Meadowbank stadium committee secretary Aileen Blyth said.
"It’s just a good facility, and a good meeting place over the winter.
"There’s always a cup of coffee, afternoon tea, heating is going and you’ve got 30-odd people you can communicate with."
It was used by bowlers from as far south as Palmerston and as far north as Waimate as well as inland to Kurow.
The stadium is used every day of the week during winter, Blyth said.
"If they’re not bowling in a tournament, they’ll be here in the morning having a practice or a roll up.
"It’s very popular and a lot of business houses have been coming in too and using it as their function."
It has also been a back-up option for outdoor tournaments.
Among the frequent users are IHC and CCS who have been coming to the stadium for all 30 years of its existence.
"We’ve had CCS and IHC every season apart from Covid when they missed two years."
The committee was inspired by the indoor stadium in Dunedin when planning to build their own in 1996, Blyth said.
"That had been up about two years before this got started so we were able to use information from there on what to do here."
The club used a combination of grants and funraised money to built it.
"It was a lot of fundraising," Blyth said.
"We did lots of functions here — bottle auctions, other sports nights, housie, quiz nights, we did a lot of that."
The indoor green is half the width of an outdoor green, meaning four games can be played instead of eight.
Meadowbank Bowling Club is in its 145th year, making it the sixth-oldest bowling club in New Zealand.
