This year's Jean Pierre Caribbean Youth Net­ball Tour­na­ment (JP­CYNT) has been can­celled.

This was an­nounced by the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, fol­low­ing its 46th An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) via Zoom on Sat­ur­day. The coun­cil de­cid­ed that the an­nu­al youth event will now be held next year with one change to the qual­i­fy­ing age-group ac­cord­ing to a re­lease sent out yes­ter­day.

"As an­tic­i­pat­ed, the im­pact of COVID-19 on the Net­ball was a ma­jor con­cern to all mem­bers. In light of pre­vail­ing cir­cum­stances, Coun­cil agreed that the host­ing of tour­na­ments may not be fea­si­ble this year," the re­lease said.

"In or­der to pro­vide scope for the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of play­ers that have been dis­ad­van­taged with the can­cel­la­tion of the 2020 JP­CYNT, Coun­cil ap­proved the host­ing of an Un­der-17 (rather than an U-16) JP­CYNT in 2021. It was pro­posed that the 'down­time' should be used to ad­vance e-learn­ing in the ar­eas of gov­er­nance, um­pir­ing and coach­ing."

Some 20 del­e­gates and six ob­servers from 12 mem­ber coun­tries in­clud­ing An­guil­la, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Ja­maica, Montser­rat, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and T&T at­tend­ed the AGM. The 32 par­tic­i­pants in­clud­ed the six-mem­ber CNA ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee.

The AGM was ini­tial­ly card­ed to be held in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines dur­ing the pe­ri­od March 26-27 but was put on hold due to the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) de­c­la­ra­tion of a COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on March 11 and the im­po­si­tion of pub­lic health pro­to­cols de­signed to con­tain the spread of the virus.At the AGM, the ap­proval of the ex­ec­u­tive re­port and au­dit for the pe­ri­od un­der re­view was ap­proved and al­so the adop­tion of the amend­ed con­sti­tu­tion and the elec­tion of ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers for the pe­ri­od 2020-2022.

"The CNA Coun­cil has re­turned the mem­bers of the last Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee to serve for the in­com­ing pe­ri­od; ex­cept that of Im­me­di­ate Past Pres­i­dent (IPP). The IPP has served in that ca­pac­i­ty for two terms, as per stip­u­la­tions of the amend­ed con­sti­tu­tion."

 The mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive, ap­proved by Coun­cil, were pres­i­dent Ru­fi­na Paul of St Lu­cia, first vice-pres­i­dent Nisha Craig­well of Bar­ba­dos, sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent Doris Mc In­tosh of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, sec­re­tary Deb­bie-Ann Fran­cois of T&T and trea­sur­er Daria Poy­otte of St Lu­cia.

Com­ing out of the meet­ing a “Post Covid-19 Caribbean Net­ball” strat­e­gy com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed.

"Coun­cil has man­dat­ed the strat­e­gy com­mit­tee to 'trans­late talk in­to ac­tions' de­signed to en­hance the ca­pac­i­ty of mem­ber coun­tries to se­cure the re­sources nec­es­sary to build re­silience and en­hance the pro­file of the net­ball through­out the re­gion.

CNA pres­i­dent Paul closed the pro­ceed­ings by thank­ing the coun­cil mem­bers for their con­tin­ued con­fi­dence in the lead­er­ship of the or­gan­i­sa­tion and as­sured mem­ber coun­tries of the ex­ec­u­tive’s com­mit­ment to the ad­vance­ment of net­ball in the Caribbean.