After four intense rounds of voting and deadlocked at five apiece with Cheryl Hermonstine, Aubrey Hutson was re-elected for a third consecutive four-year term on Sunday at the helm of the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG).
Hutson’s re-election bid was successful after Hermonstine decided to throw in the towel even though half of the 10 clubs voted for her to become the next president. She agreed to continue her tenure as first vice-president based on a certain condition. A condition that she requested to remain private when contacted by this publication yesterday.
According to Hermonstine, after Hutson agreed to the condition, she withdrew and he was subsequently declared president for another term by the Returning Officer, Kalam Juman-Yassin, the long serving president of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA).
The full slate of the current AAG body reads:
Aubrey Hutson…President
Cheryl Hermonstine…First Vice President
Paul Arthur…. Second Vice President
Dwayne Carter.….Treasurer
Elton Bollers….Assistant Treasurer
Keith Campbell, Linden Phillips, Telson Williams, Niall Stanton and Tyron Smith are the five Committee Members.
The positions of secretary and assistant secretary are appointed by the executive members and those persons will be named following the first meeting.
In an immediate reaction on Sunday at the National Track and Field Centre where the National Senior Championships was staged, Hutson thanked his supporters and also stated that it will take a collective effort of more action and less ‘lip service’ to ensure the discipline’s continued development.
“First of all I must say thanks to the clubs that supported me and I intend to be a president of all clubs and all athletes in this country. I am still prepared and look forward to working with those who did not support me and I hope that they would come to the realization that moving sports forward in Guyana has to be a collective effort and you cannot sit on the sidelines and wait for elections then to show your face.”
Hutson added that “Running Track and Field is a serious business and we need to all put our pedals to the metal to ensure that positive things happen for our sport.”
Changes
Hutson then stressed that changes must be made in order for local athletes to succeed at the elite level.
“The athletes are running ahead of us the administrators. There are issues that we need to address in terms of athletes contracts, athletes sustenance and programmes of getting athletes to the elite level, getting them more exposed on the international circuit.
“Unless we are in that realm, we will continue to do well at CARIFTA and Junior Championships around the world but when it comes to dealing with other elite athletes we will run into trouble,” he said.
He also stated that he would like to see the development of coaches locally to give them the necessary knowledge of how to deal with elite athletes and also “try to get a lot more clubs involved in the whole process of developing athletes.”
Letter Grade
Quizzed to give a letter grade of the association during the last four years, Hutson had the following to say:
“The council as a whole, I would not give it a good grade over the past few years. There are few workers. We need more dedication from the executive, less lip service and more working people. The more workers that can come onboard, the better it would be but there are few people who are working and more people talking. So I would really and truly like to give us an A grade in the future, but if the same thing continues we will continue to fail our athletes. So I will take it as average and give it a C.”
Closer working relations with the government
Hutson concluded by revealing that the Minister of Sport, Charles Ramson Jr., Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Kashif Muhammad and Director of Sport, Steve Ninvalle have all pledged to work closer with the AAG in an effort to support for the development of the discipline.
“The Director of Sport and the Chairman of the NSC are colleagues of mine and they have pledged their support. The Sports Minister has likewise said that he wants to work with us to see Track and Field develop, so it tells me that he has a general interest. I think these current gentlemen with the position that they are in, are going to act and do us well” Hutson opined.
