Neil Paynter is looking forward to devoting more time to his family and pursuing an insatiable passion for fishing and gardening after stepping down as president of St George’s Cricket Club at the club’s recent annual general meeting.

Paynter, who served 22 years as president after succeeding Louis “Red” DeSilva in 2002 and became the longest-serving president of the postwar era, and second in tenure only to W.S. Cooper (1910-1934), concedes that his resignation was bittersweet but feels the time was right to bring an end to his reign.

“Personally it wasn’t difficult because I felt it was the right time for me,” he said. “From a club perspective I’ve always said what else can I do?

“But I felt there are people who are willing to do the job, who are ready, and I felt that it was more important to step down and allow them to run the club and I will be there as a support system.

“It was a bittersweet moment but I don’t regret it. I don’t regret who our team is now at the club and I just wish them all the best.”

The 56-year-old has been succeeded by former vice-president Mishael Paynter and he believes the new regime is capable of continuing his good work.

“I only see it going from strength to strength but the key element is going to be we, as members, supporting this new committee,” he said.

“I’ve always said that it is a privilege to run and be a part of a membership team but more importantly the members, the active members who support the initiatives and the goals that they have so we can all rise up together. So if our membership stays together and supports our new leader, then I only see us going from strength to strength.”

Paynter is also inspired to see young administrators now serving on the club’s executive committee, among them his son Nzari, who plays for the club’s senior football and cricket teams.

“It is very, very encouraging because I started on management at 18,” he added. “I became president at 34 and to see young people come on and be a part of it I just hope that they hang in there because it’s not easy.

“It’s a very difficult task. You don’t get paid at all so it’s important that they have this first, this second and then I think that they will be successful.

“I am very confident that with my support and anyone else’s support they will go even beyond what our expectations are.”

Paynter never envisioned how long he would serve as president and attributes a desire to implement a succession plan at the club as the catalyst for serving in the role for 22 years.

“When I came into this job I never had a vision of how long I would be here,” he added. “But I can tell you my reason for probably staying so long is because I always wanted to have a succession plan.

“I‘ve been a part of many elections where there have been some challenges and things have not gone so well where people would leave this club divided. But I always wanted to have an election where we came together and whoever became the leader the whole membership supported them whomever they may be.

“So I just hung around and I remember talking to my friend Romeo Ruddock who was the vice-president at the time. He was like ‘Neil, you can’t go anywhere because we need to make sure we have a plan in place’ and we worked on that plann and it’s come to fruition.”

Paynter was bitten by the administrative bug at 17 when he was invited by former club president Calvin “Caledonia” Smith to attend an AGM despite being ineligible to do so.

“He said come to the AGM and I am like ‘I am not old enough Mr Smith’,” he recalled. “He said come on anyway so I came up and the secretary at the time was taking roll call and obviously my name wasn’t called and I was asked to politely leave as I was not old enough.”

Despite his brief attendance at the meeting, the experience was enough to inspire Paynter to become involved on the club’s executive committee, which he began the following year before venturing overseas to attend university.

He rejoined the club’s management team in 1995 and served as secretary before being elected as president seven years later against his will.

“I really didn’t want to go in to be honest with you. Red DeSilva, may he rest in peace, told me I should become president and I was like ‘I don’t think so, I don’t want to do it right now,” Paynter recalled.

“I was the secretary at the time and he said ‘Neil, I am going to nominate you’ and I said that I was going to decline Come to the meeting I get nominated, I accepted it and the rest is history and 22 years I never envisioned.”

Paynter, who is employed as a school teacher described his tenure as president as a “labour of love”.

“I guess when you do something that you love, it’s not a job,” he added. “It’s just like I am as a school teacher, I love what I do. I don’t go to work every day, I go to get an experience with our young people so for me being a part of my community and experience all their ups and downs was indeed a privilege for me.

“Being one of the premier clubs who host Cup Match we don’t only serve as the St George’s community, we service Bermuda as a whole and also the international community because Cup Match has gone global, so it’s important that we sustain on that path and that we continue the great tradition that both clubs have always had and continue to do.”

Organising and hosting Cup Match proved to be the highlight of Paynter’s tenure at the helm.

“That is always my highlight for St George’s Cricket Club, having the ability and privilege to run Cup Match for the wider Bermuda community,” he said.

Paynter also took great pleasure in coaching youngsters involved in the club’s youth football programme.

“The thing I cherish the most is watching young people develop into productive members,” he added.

“Seeing a young man or woman that was playing in our under sevens or under nines and then eventually become a full member and then take part in the activity at St George’s Cricket Club, is the most important thing in any organisation. That you have young people a part of it and as they move into and transfer into those different avenues that they become the brainchild of everything that happens within your club.

“That’s very important that we sustain that. We are a community club first, and that’s very important to me.”

Paynter’s tenure was not without its share of challenges, such as trying to unite the club’s membership and wider St George’s community.

“I think the biggest challenge of being a leader of an organisation is having the ability to bring the people together,” he said. “That was always the largest challenge here and I think we are on the right path.

“I think we have united our community to an extent because, whether we want to believe it or not, St George’s Cricket Club is a pillar in our community and because we are so close knit there can be some challenges with it, but I think for the most part we have really done well in doing that.”

While he has resigned as president, Paynter still resides on the club’s management committee as a non-voting member.

“I can’t vote or make any decisions. I‘m just here to help so for 12 months. I will be there alongside them assisting in any of their initiatives,” he explained.

“But if I am called upon you know what I am going to do, I am going to do whatever my club asks me to do to the best of my ability.

“Just because I am not the president doesn’t mean that I now just leave it because I have seen many executives step down and you don’t see them any more.

“I still mark the field, I love doing that. That wasn’t a presidential job and I did that way before I was president. I would assist with the bar to stack if they needed, but what I said isthat they need to get the most of me because when my boat goes in the water at the end of April they will need to make a 4- hour reservation because once I am out there I am only calling Harbor Radio if I need them.

“I will be out there doing as much fishing as I can and spending time in my garden and with family.”

Asked what advice does he have for the club’s new executive committee, Paynter replied: “It’s one saying that John F. Kennedy used to say but I just changed it around. The advice is, ‘Not what your club can do for you, but what you can do for your club’.

“If they take that mantra, I think they can only go from strength to strength because you have to be vested in this organisation. You have to feel that it belongs to you and you have to feel that whatever is around here is yours and if you do that, then you would take care of it as if it was your own.

“That’s the advice that I would give to anyone who wants to be a part of St George’s Cricket Club.”