Bowls in a good place says new boss

HIGH HONOUR: Bay of Plenty's Mike Spring is the newly elected president of Bowls New Zealand. PHOTO/JOHN BORREN250915JB09BOP

Bowls New Zealand has a busy, two-year international programme ahead with a Bay of Plenty man at the helm of the organisation.

Mike Spring was elected as the national president for the next two years at the Bowls New Zealand AGM held last Saturday. He had previously served two years as national vice-president, plus three years as president of both Matua and Bay of Plenty Bowls.

The Tauranga man said being elected as national president was the undoubted highlight of his time in bowls administration.

"We have the Asia Pacifics being hosted in New Zealand in a couple of months' time in November, the Trans-Tasman, Six Nations in March and then in November next year we have 20 nations competing here in World Bowls. That is all happening on my watch. Brilliant! It really is exciting."

Spring is heartened by the healthy state bowls is in, particularly with the continued trend for younger players to take up the sport.

"We actually have more participants than rugby. It is very positive. In one of the semifinals of the national open championships last Christmas, one of the women's teams of four had a total age of 88, with one 29-year-old in the team," Spring said.

"There has been a big schools programme on. A lot of the kids start off by referral from parents and grandparents and take it up from there. We just had Ashley Jeffcoat, from Raglan, winning gold at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa and she is only 16.

"Locally bowls is in a good place but you have to keep working it. Like all other sports now, membership is a struggle. People have so many other things to do now. Casual participants, like twilight bowlers and business house, are a huge part of bowls now and outnumber our membership bowlers by two to one."

Spring wants to leave bowls in better shape than he found it, which he admits was a big call.

"It means we have to continually work at change, and encourage clubs to change and centres to change.

"We have been pushing the message out there for eight years now that we need to adapt to society.

"That message is getting through."