Despite calls to the executive of the Amateur Swimming Association of T&T (ASATT) for elections, Saturday’s key meeting of the general council to discuss the bye-laws of the new company failed to generate the turn-out that was expected, said ASATT president, Joseph Mc Leod.
The meeting was critical so that clubs could have seen the draft of the new bye-laws, ratify them and determine how the association could move forward. It was also to set a date for elections. Yesterday Mc Leod said members who went to various radio programmes did not attend the meeting, which was indicative of their desire to create confusion.
The ASATT has been asked to make a change from an National Sporting Organisation (NSO) to a limited liability company, which required a change of name and the formation of bye-laws. However, attempts to make the bye-laws comparable with companies internationally have led to a lengthy delay. The ASATT, along with the clubs, also agreed that no elections could be held until this new company came into existence.
Mc Leod explained that, in spite of the low turn-out, members who were there, such as: Tidal Wave, Atlantis, Tsunami, Royhills Seals, Mantaray and Linkie Yearwood (an ex member of the swim association), got the opportunity to see the volume of work that is needed before all documents for the formation of the new company could be submitted. A 34-page document was on the table to be discussed and from it they could have only gotten to the fourth page, which was headlined: Membership.
A date is being sought to continue the discussions.
“We were looking at Saturday but our coaches will be discussing ways to improve swim performances in the middle- and long-distance events and will also be monitoring programmes implemented to develop the sport,” Mc Leod said.
He noted that ASATT faced an already booked schedule over the next few weeks but will target weekends to continue discussions.
Mc Leod said from the discussions held it was realised that the new name given to the company would have to be changed to embrace all swimmers and coaches at home and abroad. The proposed name for the company is “The Amateur Acquatic Association of T&T.” According to Mc Leod, this did not represent swimmers who are professionals as well as as swimmers who receive monies from the T&T government for preparation for key international tournaments, but are at schools and universities overseas.
He called for more discussions from a wider section of the swimming fraternity if the sport is to achieve major targets, rather than members being critical. He lashed out at the critics such as Jason Wickham, Franz Huggins and ex ASATT president Gregory Colleymore, whom he claimed raised the issue of the association embracing ghost clubs.
“I don’t know what a ghost club is. What we have are clubs that lose membership for many reasons, such as: swimmers going on scholarships; swimmers moving to other clubs; clubs’ inability to pay the exorbitant fees that some pool owners are asking; the shut down of pools in certain zones which causes clubs to go and use pools outside of their districts which means a higher transportation cost, etc. These things happen and therefore the association has to make a decision if these clubs must be struck off the list or not and I don’t think it is wise to do” Mc Leod said.
The local swimming boss also made it clear that some of these clubs have produced many national swimmers, such as Flying Fish and Piranha.
“This can happen to any club, so what do they want the association to do,” asked Mc Leod.
He explained also that building the membership of a club is difficult and takes time since coaches will have to start from scratch. “This entails going back from the ‘learn-to-swim programmes’ to pre-competition swimmers and all the way up, which takes a lot of time,” Mc Leod concluded.
WALTER ALIBEY