Alex Graham was yesterday elected president of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) when the association held its Annual General and Biennial Meetings at the Olympic House, High Street.
The new secretary is Marcia Blackman who replaces Dr. Karen Pilgrim.
Pilgrim is one of two vice presidents with the other being John Mario Perreira.
Colin Beaton is the treasurer with Nicola Perreira the assistant secretary/treasurer.
The new executive will become effective as of 1 January, 2011 and is expected to serve for the next two years.
The new executives are however, expected to attend council meetings in order to facilitate the a smooth transition come January 1.
Graham will succeed the current president, Phillip Walcott, who declined to run for another two year term.
“There is the issue of completing the process of developing our by-laws which basically I had set up as one of the major objectives for this year’s term that is coming to an end, and we are just about to achieve that and I’m particularly happy that we will be able to complete that,” Walcott said.
“This year we had not been able to be as busy as we were in previous years, but I think we are in a position where we have laid some foundation we are leaving with the by laws in place and the strategic plan… everything is not what GASA wanted but it is a step forward.”
Walcott said the association will leave behind the five year strategic plan for the new executives to execute. “One issue is the strategic plan which we have more or less completed in theory.
“The issue now is that of implementation and I will therefore reccommend that to the new executive for their consideration, and for them to work to implement.
“If we are going to put GASA on strong financial footings, one of the things that we have to have is a document that persons can look at and see that we are looking to develop in some systematic manner and that is what the strategic plan will do for us.
“It is a document that we now have to take and operationalize and that is going to be the challenge for the new team and I wish to assure them of my support in whatever means possible,” Walcott said.
He, however said that he was disappointed with the lack of the expansion of the association to outlying regions outside of Georgetown.
“What I regret most is the ability to expand into the outlying regions, I think if we are to be a viable national association I think we have to be able to operate outside of Georgetown so I started something in Linden and it was not sustained but I would like to see the new association working to get Linden back on stream and reaching out to places like Bartica,” Walcott stated.
Graham said he hoped that the association would be able to expand in terms of the number of affiliated clubs, within the next two years.
“My hope is that the next time we have an election for GASA we should at least be counting 25 ballots and not 12.
“My hope is that we could double the number of clubs that we have right now participating if we’re going to be a national body then we really have to have more than four clubs,” Graham said
“I hope we can all rally around a set of goals, and the pun is intended, that we should really set ourselves a task of ensuring that our swimmers bring back medals and everything should be secondary to this single focus. “We’re a competitive sport and therefore we should be winning So with those three things I just want to say thank you.”
