Em­broiled in con­tro­ver­sy for most of her pres­i­den­cy with play­ers, mem­bers of her ex­ec­u­tive, and leagues, for­mer na­tion­al play­er Sher­ry-Ann Black­burn was de­feat­ed by Deb­bie-Ann Fran­cois 22-13 for the pres­i­den­cy of the Net­ball Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the elec­tion of of­fi­cers at the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) on Sat­ur­day.

On the eve of the AGM, Black­burn found her­self on the re­ceiv­ing end of crit­i­cism when she changed the AGM from be­ing an in-per­son meet­ing card­ed for the Mal­oney In­door Sports Com­plex to an on­line for­mat with less than 24 hours be­fore the meet­ing was called and with­out the ap­proval of the gen­er­al coun­cil.

Her de­ci­sion was met with dis­ap­proval from var­i­ous net­ball stake­hold­ers who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Fri­day, claim­ing that it was un­eth­i­cal to change the meet­ing to an on­line one at short no­tice. “You are sup­posed to in­form peo­ple way in ad­vance. Be­cause peo­ple need to set them­selves up. I get prob­lems on my phone and with Zoom and oth­er vir­tu­al plat­forms. You don’t know if I have a lap­top at home. You can­not put on a meet­ing of this mag­ni­tude.”

She added the de­ci­sion has in­con­ve­nienced the stake­hold­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those from To­ba­go who al­ready made their way to Trinidad to at­tend the meet­ing.

The source added the move is an al­leged plot to keep the Schools Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion from at­tend­ing the meet­ing. “They felt the sec­ondary school will be at­tend­ing the meet­ing. How­ev­er, if it is vir­tu­al, they can block those who they did not want in the meet­ing. The source added that no con­sid­er­a­tions were giv­en to mem­bers who may have in­ter­net is­sues, like peo­ple drop­ping off and maybe lodged in the meet­ing wait­ing room wait­ing for the host of the meet­ing to al­low them back in­to the meet­ing.”

When Guardian Me­dia Sports spoke to Black­burn on Wednes­day about T&T Sec­ondary Schools As­so­ci­a­tion and their par­tic­i­pa­tion at the AGM, she re­spond­ed, “Are you ask­ing if they are com­pli­ant? They are not com­pli­ant.”

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia Sports was in­formed that the Sec­ondary Schools As­so­ci­a­tion had paid their cap­i­ta­tion and af­fil­i­a­tion fees for 2023 and 2024, and sub­scrip­tion fees for 2025 were al­so paid.

Black­burn’s al­leged ac­tions saw the mem­ber­ship rep­re­sent­ed by six leagues at the AGM —Lystra Lewis Port-of-Spain, Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball, To­ba­go, Pri­ma­ry Schools, San Fer­nan­do, and Re­pub­lic Bank Laven­tille Net­ball Leagues — with a to­tal of 36 votes elect­ing the en­tire slate led by Fran­cis in­to of­fice to serve a four-year term.

The Sec­ondary Schools Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion did not at­tend the meet­ing.

Fran­cois, the cur­rent gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CNA) and for­mer three-time ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, told Guardian Me­dia Sports af­ter the meet­ing that, “This ex­ec­u­tive will work to bring trust and in­tegri­ty back in the sport. We will work with the net­ballers and lis­ten to their con­cerns.”

To our stake­hold­ers, she said, “We will be ap­proach­ing you and will en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty with your as­sis­tance. The jour­ney has now start­ed, and I thank God and all who have sup­port­ed this new ex­ec­u­tive, and we look for­ward to your con­tin­ued sup­port. We ask that you hold us ac­count­able to en­sure the sport is up­lift­ed.”

Net­ball T&T 2025 AGM Re­sults

AGM - Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2025

Pres­i­dent

Deb­bie - Ann Fran­cois 22

Sher­ry-Ann Black­burn 13

1st Vice Pres­i­dent

Ky­la Wil­son 21

Joel Young - Strong 14

2nd Vice Pres­i­dent

Coreen David 21

Lisa Stanis­laus 14

Sec­re­tary

Mar­sha Be­dassie 20

La Toya War­rick 12

Asst. Sec­re­tary-

Dana George 21

Karis­sa Scott 11

Trea­sur­er

Josanne Thomas 19

Hay­acinth Hart 13

PRO

Daystar Swift 20

Ak­il Pe­gus 12