By Royston Alkins
The Guyana Volleyball Federation (GVF) is set to hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) February 25 at Olympic House, Kingston, Georgetown and the federation has invited all three area associations, with Berbice and Demerara confirmed to attend while there is some cloud over the participation of Essequibo, who has been inactive over the years.
The meeting is set to commence at 14:00 hours with a number of important matters on the agenda. Each association is expected to send at least nine members to charter the way forward for the federation.
According to president of the federation, John Flores, addressing the 2017 calendar and international assignments, be it training or tournaments will be the major focus when the heads of the sub associations meet.
“Last year we started a number of programs which we would like to build on. We started work in the secondary schools but we want to start working in the primary schools since a number of international Under-16 tournaments are set for 2017 and we want to participate in those,” Flores told Stabroek Sports.
Flores, who is also an international referee, indicated that it was important to have the sport played in schools. He pointed out that the male Under-19 team has been holding its own whenever the team represents Guyana but admitted that he had concerns over the performance of the female youth teams who do not quite produce the same results as the males.
Part of the problem, the president pointed out, was the issue of the girls not gelling together simply because they do not often play together.
“Working with the females and bringing them up to scratch will be one of our focus during the year. As you saw today, (Sunday) we have a lot more female clubs in Georgetown and Berbice than usual, which is good for the game. We want to engage the schools to build on this. There is also a lot of interest from girls in rural areas like Lethem and Orealla, we will also try to reach out to them.”
Flores, in his assessment of 2016, was quite frank.
“It didn’t go too well, like the country itself, a lot of sponsors pulled out,” he added.
Among the positives, Flores highlighted the overseas assignments to Brazil as the highpoints of the year.
“We did send two teams to Brazil last year, a team from Demerara and one from Berbice. I can say that those trips kept the local teams going. As you know, Brazil is one of the powerhouses in volleyball and it’s always good to measure up against them.”
The team from Demerara placed third in the tournament while the Berbice team failed to get past the preliminary rounds.
