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Friday, February 28, 2025

Things that Mat­ter

Team effort for T&T sport to progress

by

20131111

The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) in con­junc­tion with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Youth Af­fairs and Sport, re­cent­ly host­ed a sports ad­min­is­tra­tion course in To­ba­go, which was well at­tend­ed. The in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the lec­tur­ers and the course par­tic­i­pants was ex­cel­lent, con­struc­tive and for­ward think­ing.

It has tak­en the TTOC longer than any­one would have liked to get the lo­gis­tics and arrange­ments in place to host what for many was a long over­due event.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the TTOC would have con­duct­ed Olympic Day re­lay ac­tiv­i­ties and Olympic Youth camps in To­ba­go so it's not to say that To­ba­go has been ig­nored by the TTOC.

An­nette Knott, the cur­rent sec­re­tary gen­er­al who pre­vi­ous­ly served on the TTOC ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee as a vice pres­i­dent, is a res­i­dent in To­ba­go.

It al­so must be said that over the years, every course, work­shop and sem­i­nar put on by the TTOC, sport stake­hold­ers from To­ba­go have al­ways par­tic­i­pat­ed.

It is very ev­i­dent that the sport fra­ter­ni­ty in To­ba­go are deeply com­mit­ted to sport and the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of sport in T&T. No one should ques­tion their ded­i­ca­tion and sin­cere de­sire to pur­sue what­ev­er is in the best in­ter­est of sport in T&T.

The THA Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Youth Af­fairs and Sport has al­ways been more than will­ing to col­lab­o­rate with the TTOC, once it's in the best in­ter­est of sport and the ath­letes, that sup­port is forth­com­ing. There is a shared vi­sion of striv­ing for ex­cel­lence.

One of the huge ben­e­fits of the re­cent sports ad­min­is­tra­tion course was the op­por­tu­ni­ty it pre­sent­ed for open and hon­est shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion, con­cerns and feed­back.

Com­ing out of this shar­ing be­tween the TTOC and To­ba­go sport lead­ers, coach­es and de­ci­sion mak­ers was a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the per­spec­tives and re­al­i­ties that are com­mon as well as those that are dif­fer­ent.

An area that re­al­ly got my at­ten­tion was the dis­cus­sion on sport spon­sor­ship. There are com­mon is­sues and chal­lenges but if one has to be hon­est there are di­men­sions of the lo­cal sport spon­sor­ship land­scape that must be con­sid­ered unique to To­ba­go.

What I did as­sure the course par­tic­i­pants and I want to make it pub­lic, is the as­sur­ance that the TTOC will host a sport mar­ket­ing spon­sor­ship work­shop in To­ba­go. It is an ini­tia­tive that all the par­tic­i­pants agreed was im­por­tant and nec­es­sary.

The TTOC will hold dis­cus­sions with the Di­vi­sion not on­ly to progress the sport mar­ket­ing and spon­sor­ship work­shop but to en­sure that the sport ad­min­is­tra­tion course held in To­ba­go re­cent­ly is not a one and done TTOC ef­fort.

An­oth­er is­sue that came up was the need for na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­istaions (NSO) to ad­dress the de­vel­op­ment of the re­spec­tive sports in To­ba­go.

Many of the To­ba­go stake­hold­ers had jus­ti­fi­able cause for feel­ing a bit ig­nored. It is pos­si­ble in some in­stances that this may be a per­cep­tion but it is clear that the de­vel­op­ment of sport in To­ba­go ought to be a pri­or­i­ty on the agen­da of na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions.

What­ev­er the chal­lenges, ob­sta­cles and is­sues may be, di­a­logue and good­will will make sure the best in­ter­est of sport in T&T re­mains the fo­cus.

The TTOC re­mains com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of sport and the Olympic move­ment in this twin-is­land re­pub­lic.

There are a lot of dis­cus­sions that will be nec­es­sary if the ob­jec­tive of ten Olympic gold medals by the year 2024 is to be made re­al.

Every com­mu­ni­ty and Olympic NSO must be part of the dri­ve. It will take a team ef­fort, uni­ty and har­mo­ny.

One na­tion, one peo­ple, one T&T.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC. For more in­for­ma­tion on the Olympic move­ment and the TTOC vis­it www.ttoc.org.


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