Hutson re-elected as AAG President

– excited to work with new committee

By Romario Samaroo

Aubrey Hutson will continue to lead the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) for the next four years after he was re-elected as President when the Association held their Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the National Resource Centre, Woolford Avenue on Sunday.

With nine clubs eligible to vote, Hutson won six votes, while the other contender for the position, Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Major Shen Fung, got a positive nod from the other three candidates.
Speaking to the media after the elections, Hutson reached out to the other three clubs that did not vote for him in order to have a mutual understanding and take the sport to the next level.
“It was an honour to get re-elected and a pleasure to serve as President. I am heartened by the show of support I got from most of the clubs and I think any president would be elated by winning the elections in that manner. To the three members who did not vote for me, I want to reach out to them and ask them to please come on board as it would require all of us, not just a few of us, but all of us; so let us sit together and put together framework and policies to get our athletes into the realm we all would be proud of,” the AAG President stated.
When questioned on his plans for athletics over the next four years, Hutson revealed that while there is a plan, it will be ‘tweaked’ based on what is there to work with and how the plan goes.
“Our plan will have to constantly be tweaked based on the personnel we would have to work with, we have to understand that athletes are very dynamic, for example we have Jason Yaw and Cassie George pictures that adorn the front of our stadium [Leonora Track and Field Facility] but right now they aren’t necessary our hopeful in terms of athletics, unless we can do something and turn them around, so we will constantly work with them again, development, development, development; it has to do with the coaches, with the athletes, with us; so we have to charter the course so they can run to success, best times and jump the distances that we can say yes will bring us medals at the Olympics so it’s a constant process, it is not a one brush paint all there is no one way to raise an athlete so we have to constantly work with them. Our plan yes we want to get medals at the Olympics, we want to get medals at the world championships later this year, but based on what we have we have to work with it and move our sport forward,” Hutson stated.
In the position for vice president, Lyndon Wilson and Mark Scott opted out of the race as Amanda Hermonstine won six votes and Colin Ming received five votes to take the two spots. Godfrey Washington, Colin Boyce and Hector Edwards also ran for the post, winning three, one and three votes respectively.
Nial Stanton was elected as the Treasurer with five votes, while Kwabina Griffith received three and one vote spoilt. Meanwhile, in the Assistant Treasure post, Elton Bollers was the lone candidate after the other contenders were eliminated for various reasons.
Completing the committee were the five elected committee members, comprising of Lyndon Wilson (six votes), Keith Campbell (seven votes), Silus Brummell (five votes), Yvonne October (six votes), and while Buster Wright and Carla Rodney both received four votes, fighting for the last spot on the council, Rodney withdrew her candidacy, allowing Wright to take the spot.
During the last elected council, a number of members opted out of their positions for a number of reasons, forcing the council to run without their full quota. With the full committee now elected, Hutson anticipated quick progress with those elected.
“I worked so many years with no vice president, literally not having a treasurer, our secretary lives in Linden; it has really put a strain on me personally and on the association, but we were able to serve our athletes to the best of our capacity, now that we have full capacity, in terms of Colin Ming who has been nominated numerous times, Amanda Hermonstine who has been elevated from assistant treasurer to Vice President, I think we are going to move and move very quickly,” Hutson said.