Bri­an Lewis

A new be­gin­ning. A brighter fu­ture. As T&T cel­e­brates Di­vali– the fes­ti­val of lights with the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty–it seems as if it's a clear sign not mere co­in­ci­dence that the top­ic of to­day's col­umn of­fers a ray of hope and light.As sport both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly con­tin­ues to face a re­lent­less bar­rage of sor­did head­lines–all symp­to­matic of poor gov­er­nance.

It's time­ly that the fo­cus to­day is good gov­er­nance. Why? There is good news. The bat­tle to im­prove good gov­er­nance in T&T re­ceived a pow­er­ful boost last week.Good Sport gov­er­nance is top of mind in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, re­gion­al­ly and lo­cal­ly. The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) host­ed last week its first ever "Good Sport Gov­er­nance" week.

A se­ries of meet­ings were held with na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and sport stake­hold­ers. Pro­fes­sor Leigh Robin­son, head of sport stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stir­ling pro­vid­ed ex­per­tise in sport gov­er­nance. Sup­port­ing, the TTOC in its on­go­ing ef­forts to build lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance ca­pac­i­ty, knowl­edge and skill set is Olympic Sol­i­dar­i­ty.

A key as­pect of the last week's good sport gov­er­nance week was the con­sul­ta­tion aimed at in­clud­ing sport stake­hold­ers views in the pro­posed good gov­er­nance code for sport in T&T ini­tia­tive that the TTOC is cham­pi­oning.

One of the break­through ben­e­fits was a heart-to-heart meet­ing in­volv­ing the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T and the Olympic com­mit­tee. It was the first time such a col­lec­tive gath­er­ing was held and all those present in­clud­ing Pro­fes­sor Robin­son ex­pressed pro­found ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share ideas, con­cerns and views on gov­er­nance.

Min­is­ter of Sport Dar­ryl Smith must be com­mend­ed for his en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port and en­dorse­ment. Min­is­ter Smith al­so seized the mo­ment and al­lowed Pro­fes­sor Robin­son to share her can­did thoughts while at the same time mak­ing it crys­tal clear that im­prov­ing gov­er­nance is one of his pri­or­i­ties. The Min­istry of Sport and Sport Com­pa­ny and the TTOC must work to­geth­er and share re­sources.

The TTOC host­ed a good gov­er­nance work­shop at Olympic House where Min­is­ter Smith ad­dressed par­tic­i­pants and sat in on the work­shop for as long as his busy sched­ule al­lowed.

Al­so meet­ing with Pro­fes­sor Robin­son were mem­bers of the TTOC Gov­er­nance Com­mis­sion. Mem­bers of the com­mis­sion in­clude Rikhi Ram­per­sad, Bri­an Fron­tin, Ax­el Kra­vatzky, Ja­son Juillen and Brigadier Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillip Spencer and Jeanne Bor­neo.

The TTOC have tak­en de­ci­sive steps. The good sport gov­er­nance code project is com­bin­ing the ef­forts and com­pe­ten­cies of a broad col­lec­tive of de­ter­mi­na­tion. A group that is res­olute that in spite of the ob­sta­cles and lipser­vice that is so preva­lent. It is time for sport in T&T to re­brand it­self on the pil­lar of im­proved gov­er­nance.

What's to come? Pub­li­ca­tion of a best prac­tice good sport gov­er­nance code for TTOC and non Olympic sport­ing bod­ies and their stake­hold­ers. This will in­clude a com­mit­ment to reg­u­lar con­si­tu­tion­al re­view, term lim­i­ta­tion, no au­to­mat­ic votes for out­go­ing ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, four year term of of­fice among oth­er best prac­tice prin­ci­ples and guide­lines.

Pub­li­ca­tion of tem­plate gov­er­nance struc­tures, process­es, and doc­u­ments that re­flect dif­fer­ent types of or­gan­i­sa­tions with­in the T&T sport sec­tor.

Train­ing, ed­u­ca­tion and lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance ca­pac­i­ty build­ing sup­port and de­vel­op­ment mech­a­nisms to help mem­bers of the TTOC stay up­dat­ed with emerg­ing gov­er­nance best prac­tice that is ap­plic­a­ble to their or­gan­i­sa­tions.Let's not re­lent. Let's re­main re­silient. Sport Mat­ters.