Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
McDonald recommends formula for successful sport associations
Dr. Ian McDonald
By Edison Jefford
“All sports organisations must make a resolution to strengthen and streamline the efficiency of their administration,” literary figure, Dr. Ian McDonald believes and recommended some ways that associations can improve their administration of sports.
McDonald, who is a renowned author, columnist and literary critic, said that sport administrators should not occupy an office “for the power and glory” but rather to facilitate the development of athletes; support superior performances and develop sports.
The multiple winner of the Guyana Prize for Literature was speaking Saturday night at a Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) Awards and Appreciation Evening. McDonald delivered the feature address and representatives from most associations were present.
He began with three prerequisites, which he said, associations “must do without fail”.
Those are: pay constant attention to fund-raising and proper meticulous accounting for money raised and spent; prepare prompt audited financial statements annually for public consumption and present detailed annual reports on what has been done and future plans.
“Sporting success comes not only on courts and fields or play and arenas but very fundamentally in the daily attention to the details of financing and organising,” McDonald said.
He said that the associations must research and publish the history of their sport.
He believes the preservation of the history of the respective sport disciplines will enable athletes to compete with a sense of tradition and pride.
“As part of recording our histories all associations should have Halls-of-Fame so that sportsmen and sportswomen, who have performed notably in their day, can be recorded. They should not be allowed to vanish into the thin air of the quickly passing years,” he said.
McDonald told his audience that the rich fields of local talent in sport must be given exposure to High Performance Centres while scholarships must be procured where necessary. He said that it is imperative to protect the next generation of athletes from obscurity.
“Guyana has an abundance of sporting talent among its young people, more often than not, they are from struggling families.
All sports worldwide are rapidly expanding their reach and search for the best. We must connect those two facts,” McDonald posited.
“One way to do this is to very actively seek out sport scholarships for our promising athletes in centres of international sport, particularly in America. It is true that these young men and women may be lost for a while on the local scene but not forever.
They will return to represent and assist us. There are thousands of scholarships out there and young Guyanese must get their share,” he added.
McDonald believes that those are the elements that will help local sport associations succeed in the administration of sport.
Those developmental methods were among the fundamental elements that the literary figure saw missing from the local landscape of sport.
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