By Royston Alkins
Former Guyana and West Indies all-rounder Roger Harper was re-elected pre-sident of the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) at the association’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) Tuesday.
Some 10 clubs who participate in both the first and second division competition and five clubs who participate only in second division competitions took part in the AGM which commenced at approximately 20:46pm at the Muslim Youth Organiza-tion (MYO) pavilion.
The process was smooth barring a single hiccup where Gandhi Youth Organization (GYO) was not allowed to vote because their financial contribution to the GCA was not up-to-date.
That episode was quickly swept aside as the returning officer for the elections, Ronald Williams, opened the nominations and voting process which led to an uncontested Harper returning at the helm of the GCA to the applause of the delegates and observers alike.
Neil Barry and Azad Ibrahim, who were elected first and second vice-presidents respectively were both challenged by University of Guyana’s representative Lavern Fraser-Thomas.
The rest of the executive comprise Deborah McNichol, secretary, Paul Castello assistant secretary, Denis Wilson, treasurer, Imran Alli, assistant treasurer, Graham Alli, marketing manager, Colin Alfred, Public relations officer, and Shawn Massiah, chairman of the competitions committee.
Following the conclusion of the voting process, Harper reassured observers of his commitment to the development of the game and said that he is aiming to continue building on what was achieved over the years. “We will be looking to run off competitions at all the different levels which would give youngsters the opportunity to showcase their talents and to help them to move onto greater heights,” he said.
“We will address the challenge of grounds availability by meeting with some of the clubs to work out some sort of arrangement,” he added.
Earlier in the evening, the association ended a four-year hiatus of its statutory Annual General Meeting (AGM) when Harper called the meeting to order sometime after 19:00pm.
In the wake of the ensuing court battles overshadowing the administration of the game locally, Harper fittingly asked the various delegates and different club representatives to acknowledge and confirm the legality of the meeting, all in attendance said ‘aye’, at which point the meeting commenced.
“This meeting was some time in the coming,” he remarked as he proceeded to make his address, highlighting a number of salient points. He first congratulated the Everest Cricket Club (ECC) on reaching the triple figure mark as a club before declaring:”“2014 to present have been good years despite a number of challenges.”
The former West Indies player spoke of the successes of the youth tournament held during the time and made special reference to the under 13 and under 15 cricket competitions being successful pointing out the opportunities the competitions give to youngsters to develop their technical and tactical skillset.
“Now that the court issues are behind us, we hope, we look forward to the development of cricket in Georgetown. I want to give the junior players the opportunity to develop and reach their full potential,” he said.
Barry then took to the floor and spoke at length about the slow progress of completing competitions at the first division level because of the unavailability of first division venues. Solutions to that particular problem will be sought, said the vice-president.
Meanwhile, the meeting ended on somewhat of a sour note when a few Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) members, petitioned the GCA to intervene in a matter surrounding the legality of the club’s representation at the meeting since they claimed that sitting president Alfred Mentore has not held an AGM or elections since 2014.
The disgruntled members presented the petition which was strongly objected to by Mentore. He articulated that the GCA has no business intervening in affairs of the clubs since the GCA is a ‘creature’ of the clubs in Georgetown and not the other way around.
Prior to the petition being read, the embattled DCC president, asked for the minutes of the meeting to be adjusted after the GCA failed to mention DCC’s participation and success in the recent UWI T20 tournament. Mentore’s disappointment was well documented and Harper agreed that the adjustment should be made. It was from that point on that a back and forth between Mentore and a few present members began.
