Red carpet rolled out at GOA appreciation dinner

The red carpet was rolled out Friday night when the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) hosted its annual appreciation and award ceremony at the Georgetown Club on Camp Street.

Awards were presented to Roy Dookhan and Ian McDonald for contributing to the development of sports while Geoffrey Sankeys and Aubrey Bishop were given awards for their contributions to the development of the GOA.

In other presentations, the Sports Journalist of the Year award went to Michael Da Silva of Stabroek News and Garfield Wiltshire secured the GOA Council Member of the Year award.

President of the GOA K. A. Juman Yassin in his speech disclosed that Da Silva and the Guyana Chronicle’s Winston Oudkerk were the two sports journalists selected to cover the PANAM games in July, all expenses paid. Wiltshire and Noel Adonis were among those selected as well.

Yassin also expressed satisfaction with the initiatives being taken by the Minister of Sport. “I must say that I like what Minister Frank Anthony has been doing, and he has my support and cooperation.”

Yassin remarked that he has been asking himself why the GOA cannot get a piece of land from the government to build its headquarters. However, he noted that there has been a dialogue between himself and President Bharrat Jagdeo and other government ministers concerning the matter but there has been no success as yet. The head office is currently located at North Road where the GOA has to pay US$2,100 monthly.

Yassin in his closing remarks made a request to the Minister of Sport to speak to the President when he goes to Cabinet. Meanwhile, Secretary General of the GOA Ivor O’ Brien in his report on the activities of the GOA for 2006 highlighted the training scholarships that were given to Aliann Pompey, Marian Burnett and Cleveland Forde. The details of that report were published by Stabroek Sport earlier in January.