Anna Marshall awarded MBE in King's Birthday Honours List
Bowls Scotland would like to congratulate Anna Marshall after being acknowledged in the King’s Birthday Honours List to receive an MBE for her many years of service to lawn bowls.
Anna began playing bowls in 1989 when she joined her local club, Bonnybridge BC near Falkirk. Due to her busy work and family commitments, Anna was never able to be as competitive as she would have liked on the green. However, off the green she was able to lend her skills selflessly to a number of different roles within our sport over the last 30 years.
Anna started out her journey as Bonnybridge BC’s treasurer, a role which she still carries out with pride and dedication to this day. From there she became a local District Secretary for the Scottish Women’s Bowling Association (SWBA) for a few years and progressed to be the SWBA’s financial convenor. Following Eleanor Allan’s retirement, Anna took on the role of secretary of the SWBA in 2003 and held this role until to SWBA and Scottish Bowling Association (SBA) unified to become Bowls Scotland in 2010.
In 2005, Anna was able to pass a motion at the SWBA AGM to ensure the 27,000 lady playing members across Scotland at the time each paid 50p for the next two years to help cover the costs of the 2007 Atlantic Championships which were being held at the National Centre for Bowling, Ayr. This was the first combined men and women’s Atlantic Championships and the event as a whole was a resounding success. David Kelly & Darren Burnett claimed bronze in the men’s pairs and Kay Moran & Margaret Letham clinched a memorable gold on home soil. Anna also spent a few years as secretary of the British Isles Women’s Bowls Council, involved in organising the annual championships and international series with fellow representatives from England, Ireland, Jersey and Wales.
A passionate supporter of bowls, Anna loved nothing more than attending major championships and cheering on the nations best players. Whether it be the Atlantic Championships in Johannesburg, South Africa, World Bowls Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand, or the 2006, 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games, Anna has been at every one of these events and followed Scotland’s success all over the globe. There’s been so many memories and friendships made of the years, but Anna recalls her favourite moment as witnessing Paul Foster and Alex Marshall beating England’s Mark Bantock and Ian Bond in the Melbourne, Australia 2006 Commonwealth Games men’s pairs gold medal match as her favourite moment.
More recently, Anna spent the maximum eight years on Bowls Scotland’s Board of Directors between 2010 and 2018 as Director of Finance and latterly Director of Competitions & Events. She oversaw a number of changes throughout the sport in this time and was a consistent presence and personality at the annual Bowls Scotland National Championships. Anna was awarded with Bowls Scotland Honorary Membership at our AGM in November 2018, which was presented to her by then Lady President, Margaret Bingham.
Delighted at receiving this tremendous news, Anna said: “During the twenty years I was with the SWBA and Bowls Scotland I met many lovely people both at home and abroad.
“I would like to thank many of them for the support they gave to me. I could not have done it without them.
“This honour has come as a huge surprise and for this I have to thank Bowls Scotland. I wish them every success in the future.”
Bowls Scotland CEO, Alan McMillan, added: “Anna has been and continues to be a great supporter of the development of the game and of Bowls Scotland.
“She is an open and hard-working individual who will speak her mind and get things done.
“This is well deserved recognition for someone who has kept herself out of the limelight and just got on with making things better for the game of bowls, women in bowls and Bowls Scotland.”
