Friday, February 12, 2010

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Sports minister getting into flow quite well By Fred Sturrup ~ NG Associate Editor ~ frederick@nasguard.com: From this space came two very challenging columns at the outset of the appointment of former Minister of State for Culture to the substantive position of the government's top person in youth, sports and culture. The caution expressed stemmed from the limited background of Minister Charles Maynard at a time when sports has really exploded around the world. For The Bahamas, our sports program has become very important and I consider it to be right up there in the top category with Tourism and Education, so, I wondered about a rookie being put in place at such a pivotal time. My concerns are lessening. Minister Maynard has indeed hit the ground running (no pun intended). I've had first hand dealings with the country's new sports chief and came away impressed. I have canvassed within the sports fraternity and the early marks are good for Minister Maynard. Congratulations Sir. The challenges are still there though. He ought to be mindful of that. For instance, one attitude he must make every effort to disabuse the federations of, is the general laziness when it comes to fostering initiatives for fundraising. I have pointed out in this space previously, the time when sporting organizations actually derived all of their funds by self-driven projects. They did this as a rule. This was at a time also, when the central government did not have a sustained program of grants. Yet, the sports organizations functioned very well and maintained growth. Once, executives of an organization mortgaged personal homes to drive a fundraising project. That set the standard and in subsequent years, several other administrators acted similarly. Sports administrators who would go out on a financial limb in order to propel their respective organization and sport were the norm yesteryear. In recent years, a few others have surfaced, but for the most part, many have simply settled in for what the government grants could do. Often after receiving grants, there would be constant agitation from the federations for more funds. Perhaps the laziness set in because these particular administrators came on stream. They preferred to wait for the government financial subsistence and make do with that. As a result, the fundraising projects dwindled. There must be a return to the old culture. Sports organizations ought to be made to present within their yearly reports, self initiatives for fundraising to supplement the grants. I believe the politicians are now sufficiently sensitized to the importance of a vibrant national sports program to continue allocating to it more and more funds from each national budget. Nevertheless, there will always be only so much to go around. So, the great challenge going forward is for Minister Maynard when interacting with the nation's sports leaders, is to impress upon them the necessity to come up with fundraising projects of their own. This is the way to go. Our national sports programs will advance in leaps and bounds as a result. Thursday, January 14, 2010