Bri­an Lewis

One of the pos­i­tives of the Olympic Com­mit­tee's (TTOC) ed­u­ca­tion and af­fil­i­ate mem­ber ca­pac­i­ty build­ing strat­e­gy is the in­creas­ing aware­ness with­in the lo­cal move­ment that much more can be done in re­spect of im­prov­ing the man­age­ment, gov­er­nance and ad­min­is­tra­tion of sport.With­in re­cent years the de­mand to at­tend the sport ad­min­is­tra­tion cours­es has in­creased ex­po­nen­tial­ly.

Last year, the TTOC held its first ad­vance sport man­age­ment course. This year the course has been over­sub­scribed.The TTOC al­so of­fers me­di­a­tion and ar­bi­tra­tion sup­port if and when re­quest­ed.A con­se­quence of the in­creased de­mand for the TTOC cours­es is grow­ing re­quests for the TTOC to con­duct sport spe­cif­ic sport man­age­ment, gov­er­nance and ad­vi­so­ry ser­vices.

The TTOC over the years has al­ways been seen as a ma­jor stake­hold­er in the lo­cal sport sys­tem.It is there­fore not far­fetched for the TTOC to be seen as an in­valu­able re­source that can be called on to ad­dress prob­lems and is­sues.Giv­en its ac­cess to both lo­cal and for­eign ex­per­tise in a num­ber of func­tion­al ar­eas it may very well be time for the TTOC to pri­ori­tise the use of its glob­al net­work to sup­port the in­creased de­mands for TTOC as­sis­tance.

The need for in­for­ma­tion, in­sight and analy­sis for the lo­cal sport sec­tor is an ur­gent pri­or­i­ty.The re­al world isn't wait­ing. Change is oc­cur­ring dai­ly. For na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and gov­ern­ing bod­ies to keep up, a quan­tum leap for­ward is re­quired–not for­ward in­to the fu­ture–but for­ward in­to to­day's world.

We have an ab­solute­ly won­der­ful sto­ry to tell the world through sport. But be­cause so many of us are be­ing held back by out­dat­ed meth­ods and think­ing the true re­al­i­ty of the enor­mous po­ten­tial and op­por­tu­ni­ties can't be re­alised.It's not and nev­er was a guess­ing game. In the past we may have been able to get away but now giv­en the ready ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion its hard if not near im­pos­si­ble to fool some of the peo­ple some of the time far less all the peo­ple all of the time.

There are sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties wait­ing to be ex­plored. This is not the time for hes­i­tan­cy. We have to go for it. We have to seek out the in­for­ma­tion, knowl­edge and the in­tel­li­gence, make in­formed choic­es, ask the right ques­tions and cre­ate the right an­swers.It's in this con­text that the TTOC must lever­age its ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al re­sources and in­sti­tu­tions to bring a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the man­age­ment, mar­ket­ing and gov­er­nance in T&T.

The is­sues and top­ics that are high on the glob­al sports agen­da must be ad­dressed not af­ter the fact but in ad­vance. We shouldn't wait un­til sit­u­a­tions be­come far ad­vanced to ad­dress them.In set­ting new stan­dards we must cham­pi­on and be in the van­guard of change. The goal should be to trans­form lo­cal sport through in­no­va­tion and ex­cel­lence in every area, be it sports mar­ket­ing, dig­i­tal me­dia, brand de­vel­op­ment, event man­age­ment and spon­sor­ship.

It's high time we stop play­ing at sport and get se­ri­ous about the op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in sport.Im­ple­ment­ing strate­gic shifts will re­quire iden­ti­fy­ing those who will lose the most from the strate­gic shift as those in­di­vid­u­als or group­ings will make every ef­fort to de­rail open­ly or silent­ly any ef­fort at mak­ing a strate­gic shift and progress.

It is nev­er easy to ex­e­cute a strate­gic shift, and do­ing it with lim­it­ed re­sources is even more dif­fi­cult.A crit­i­cal strate­gic suc­cess fac­tor is ad­dress­ing the ob­sta­cles and hur­dles.

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC). The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.Sup­port #10golds24 ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund. Make your do­na­tions at any branch of Sco­tia Bank Ac­count num­ber 171188. Sup­port our Olympic ath­letes and the Olympic Dream.