In his ad­dress the TTOC Pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis looks back, not just on 2016 but the his­to­ry of the TTOC move­ment and its place in T&T sport.

Here's his full ad­dress.

"Once up­on a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writ­ing. He had a habit of walk­ing on the beach every morn­ing be­fore he be­gan his work. Ear­ly one morn­ing, he was walk­ing along the shore af­ter a big storm had passed and found the vast beach lit­tered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretch­ing in both di­rec­tions.

Off in the dis­tance, the old man no­ticed a small boy ap­proach­ing. As the boy walked, he paused every so of­ten and as he grew clos­er, the man could see that he was oc­ca­sion­al­ly bend­ing down to pick up an ob­ject and throw it in­to the sea. The boy came clos­er still and the man called out, "Good morn­ing! May I ask what it is that you are do­ing?"

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied "Throw­ing starfish in­to the ocean. The tide has washed them up on­to the beach and they can't re­turn to the sea by them­selves," the youth replied. "When the sun gets high, they will die, un­less I throw them back in­to the wa­ter."

The old man replied, "But there must be tens of thou­sands of starfish on this beach. I'm afraid you won't re­al­ly be able to make much of a dif­fer­ence."

The boy bent down, picked up yet an­oth­er starfish and threw it as far as he could in­to the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, "It made a dif­fer­ence to that one!"

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) con­tin­ues to evolve as the role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees have changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly in re­cent years.

Re­think. Reim­age. Re­shape. Re­brand. Re­view. Reen­er­gise. Re­vi­talise. Reimag­ine a new sport or­gan­i­sa­tion that is fit for pur­pose and rel­e­vant to the CLICK Gen­er­a­tion- Fast, now, tech saavy, digi­tial and on de­mand. Trans­for­ma­tion – find­ing the bal­ance be­tween sta­bil­i­ty and con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment.

For 70 years the TTOC – non prof­it/non gov­ern­men­tal – vol­un­teer based has af­ford­ed tremen­dous­ly tal­ent­ed sons and daugh­ters of this won­der­ful and pas­sion­ate twin is­land re­pub­lic, AKA Trinidad and To­ba­go, to ex­press that God-giv­en tal­ent on the world's biggest sport­ing stage- the Olympic Games.

In so do­ing Brand Trinidad and To­ba­go ,our na­tion­al flag and na­tion­al an­them are seen and heard in a most pow­er­ful and pos­i­tive man­ner to a glob­al au­di­ence.

Olympic House has sought to rad­i­cal­ly trans­form and evolve in­to a new and mod­ern sport or­gan­i­sa­tion that is ath­lete-cen­tred, mar­ket-dri­ven and ser­vice-based, with a re­lent­less fo­cus on trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and good gov­er­nance. We have had our fail­ures and made mis­takes. But we have learned and grown and have be­come bet­ter for it.

We have re­turned mon­ey to the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Re­brand­ed Team TTO. We have coura­geous­ly laid out an am­bi­tious and as­pi­ra­tional goal of 10 or more Olympic Gold medals by 2024 – with a 10 Golds24 sys­tem ex­cel­lence and high per­for­mance pro­gramme that in­cludes an ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion Fund.

In­tro­duced fi­nan­cial medal bonus­es. Good gov­er­nance week. A Good Gov­er­nance Code- SportIn­dus­tryTT with the for­ward think­ing and so­lu­tion fo­cused ob­jec­tive of ad­vo­cat­ing for a bil­lion dol­lar en­tre­pre­neur­ial ori­ent­ed SportIn­dus­tryTT by the year 2030, ath­lete ca­reer de­vel­op­ment and brand am­bas­sador pro­grammes, long term ath­lete de­vel­op­ment and an ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund .

Com­mit­ted our­selves to liv­ing in the dig­i­tal world – liv­ing in Be­ta. We have ad­vo­cat­ed for greater gen­der eq­ui­ty and re­spect for di­ver­si­ty and non dis­crim­i­na­tion on the ba­sis of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. For ex­pe­di­tied HDC hous­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for ath­letes who have giv­en long and meri­tious ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go. To date, we haven't suc­ceed­ed and have made no progress with the ex­pe­dit­ed hous­ing pol­i­cy pro­pos­al but this is not a de­ter­rent.

But through it all we have em­braced the di­a­logue and lis­tened in­tent­ly. So­cial me­dia is the new nor­mal and we are em­pow­ered and mo­ti­vat­ed by the suc­cess of our de­lib­er­ate strat­e­gy to deep­en fan en­gage­ment and fan ac­ti­va­tion. In our ef­forts to make TeamT­TO rel­e­vant to 2016 T&T so­ci­ety 2016 has been an awe­some, fas­ci­nat­ing and, at times, even fright­en­ing one for the TTOC. How­ev­er, it has been one of sig­nif­i­cant learn­ing.

As we con­tin­ue on the Jour­ney to Tokyo 2020 and be­yond, 10 Golds2024 and SportIn­dus­tryTT2030 we must con­tin­ue to dis­rupt and cre­ate new nor­mals that meet and ex­ceed the ser­vice ex­pec­ta­tions of our ath­letes, coach­es, af­fil­i­ates, cor­po­rate part­ners and TTOC stake­hold­ers.

We must stand up and be count­ed in the fight to pro­tect chil­dren from sex­u­al preda­tors, the night­mare un­fold­ing in world sport must be faced. De­nial and eu­phemisms must not be more im­por­tant than the wel­fare and pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren from sex­u­al preda­tors. Par­ents and guardians must feel that they can trust the de­scion-mak­ers in sport to pro­tect their chil­dren.

We have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to con­tribute to cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able so­ci­ety and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Tal­ent­ed chil­dren and youth who want to have hope, who want to be­lieve that they are world class and can achieve great­ness must be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Be­ing poor, un­der­priv­i­leged, un­em­ployed and at-risk aren't in­sur­mount­able chal­lenges. Nor should be­ing les­bian, gay, bi­sex­u­al or trans­gen­der. On the is­sue of women and fe­males in sport, the TTOC must be the ar­row­head in cre­at­ing a more em­pow­er­ing en­vi­ron­ment for women in sport.

The bar­rel of a gun, cor­rup­tion and crime – be it white col­lar or oth­er­wise – must not de­fine us.

When we feel over­whelmed and as if we can't cope and the jour­ney seems im­pos­si­ble to com­plete we must re­sist com­pas­sion fade.

Re­mem­ber starfish! When the chal­lenge be­fore us seems over­whelm­ing, break the big chal­lenge down in­to small­er pieces and then take those one at a time � like one starfish at a time. And re­mem­ber, too, to that one starfish, it can make a world of dif­fer­ence.

We can make a world of a dif­fer­ence one child, one ath­lete, one com­mu­ni­ty, one medal, one day and one hour at a time. A jour­ney of a thou­sand miles be­gin with one step. Unit­ed we win, di­vide we lose.

Thank you.

Ed­i­tor's Note