League President Mike Potter can expect a warm reception at the 2022 Mid Shropshire AGM tonight (TUES) – just 24 hours after stepping back into the county spotlight.
He was made County President for the second time in front of a packed house at Wem USC for the SCGBA AGM, and here’s the speech that nominated him:
Madam President, ladies & gentleman,
It is a real honour to formally nominate Mike Potter to serve for a second time as County President in 2022, once again representing the Molson Coors Mid Shropshire League.
The pandemic has meant that he has had to wait two years to step up to the figurehead role again but I know that, having watched at close quarters how he tackled his first year as President in 2015, Mike will give first class service to the county.
He’s already doing that as the association’s competition secretary, a role that has only served to widen his sphere of his influence in the sport he loves in Shropshire.
For Mike is a man who lives and breathes bowls, having been widely recognised as Shropshire’s top referee for many years after a pretty impressive playing career on greens all over the county.
He took up the game in 1979 and has played for Corporation (winning their averages for four years in a row), Minsterley in division one of the Shrewsbury League, then GWR, Donnington Wood (where he served for 3 years as club secretary), Wrockwardine Wood, Edgmond in the Whitchurch League, Coddon and is now at home at Trench.
His best claims to fame as a bowler are winning the Clare Cup for the best newcomer at the County Handicap in 1984 and then triumphing in the Mid Shropshire Merit in 2006 – a remarkable feat for a third division bowler.
Sadly, in 2009, Mike was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and playing is no longer easy for him. But Mike bears the illness with great bravery and is simply not prepared to let it stop him from participating in the game that is his life.
If Mike Potter deserved to be County President in 2015, then the Mid Shropshire League feels he is even more deserving now – given his continuing and outstanding services to crown green bowls in Shropshire.
Mike is pictured with Rob Roden, then with Bowring, who won the County Merit in his first spell as President in 2015 at Allscott