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Officials urged to “smoothen out issues”
-Districts collect School C/ships prizes
By Edison Jefford
Digicel’s Sponsorship Manager, Gavin Hope yesterday urged those officials responsible for the organising of the National Schools’ Cycling, Swimming and Track and Field Championships to work overtime to iron out the administrative issues of the event.
“I know the weather was a problem and you couldn’t do anything about that but there were some administrative issues and I hope the Ministry (of Education) and GTU (Guyana Teachers Union) plan to smoothen out issues before the 2012 competition,” Hope said.
He was at the time addressing the media and main district representatives at a simple prize-giving ceremony at the GTU Hall. He noted that such issues directly impacts what happens on-field, and therefore, the major stakeholders must understand their responsibilities.
“It affects the children and because of that you must ensure that you get it right. We (Digicel) are onboard for the next two years, but we need to get it right so that we can all be proud. I am glad that we have reached this presentation phase,” Hope indicated.
The National Schools Championships was held last week at the National Aquatic Centre and the Guyana National Stadium. The competition endured a four-hour delay on the final day on Friday because of a South Georgetown protest over the late inclusion of an athlete.
The District barged onto the field citing what it called an illegal inclusion of an East Georgetown athlete after the registration process closed weeks ago. The protest, which triggered other protest over the quality of food that some districts provided, delayed the competition.
Digicel’s Sponsorship Manager, Gavin Hope (left) presents the National Schools Championships ‘Champion of Champions’ trophy to Upper Demerara’s, Carmen Small, in the presence of GTU President, Colin Bynoe yesterday.
The delay came at a time when the competition administrators were feverishly working to make up the time they lost on the second day because of rain. However, after getting the competition at Stadium back on stream, Upper Demerara emerged as overall winners.
Upper Demerara, District 10, amassed 67 points from the cycling, swimming, track and field and the teachers’ competitions to win the National Schools’ overall title, knocking their rivals, North Georgetown (63 points) into second place. East Georgetown was third.
Several representatives from districts were present yesterday to collect their team awards as well as the individual prizes. Usually, the presentation occurs during championships but because of a late completion Friday night, the presentations were done yesterday.
President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), Colin Bynoe said that he was extremely happy to see that although the event had “hiccups”, officials managed to forge ahead and get results from the multi-disciplined competition. He said the glitches will be corrected.
“The Guyana Teachers Union is in this process to stay. Whatever the hiccups might have been, it was a learning curve for all of us involved in planning such a mega event. What we have to do is learn and learn very quickly because of our new dimensions,” Bynoe said.
He said that he had noted the criticism that the event is 51 years old and yet officials cannot get it right, but informed the detractors that the Schools Championships has only been working with an established Management Committee for approximately four years now.
Bynoe stated that new mechanisms are being implemented to not only modernise the competition but to bring it up to the level of Caribbean counterparts. He said that those facets needed the time to work and thanked Digicel for their patience in the transition process.
“We believe that athletes ought to be given the opportunity to maximise their potential. We want to continue to provide the enabling environment for them to do so, which include several systems that we are now putting to test. We will get better,” the GTU head said.
He informed that plans are already underway to have a speedy evaluation of the 2011 event with strong policies that will influence the 2012 competition that has been proposed for Essequibo. He said success mechanisms will be implemented much earlier in the year.
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