Newly elected GOA VP touts inclusive governance

The December 22 elections of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) saw President of the Guyana Table Tennis Association Godfrey Munroe being elected Vice President for the next four-year term with Munroe stating that he will be aiming to attain inclusive governance from all associations.

In an interview with Guyana Times Sport the newly elected Vice-President said that firstly it was a privilege to take up the new position “I think we can utilize a lot more resources in terms of one of the things I’d like to incorporate the collective capacity of all the council members of the Olympic family to formulae committees

GOA Vice President Godfrey Munroe
GOA Vice President Godfrey Munroe

weather marketing, funding, developmental or so.”

Munroe went on to say that based on the funding the GOA receives, while there is a perception of it being a lot this is not the case.

“A lot of people look and say the GOA gets $136 million, but realistically is that enough to fund 23 sports? I don’t think so.” He gave the example of the plans they have to collaborate with schools to garner athletes and will consume half of the funds from that budget.

It is based on this that Munroe shares the view point that the GOA must now look at ways in which they will create other avenues to generate income and help develop the athletes that fall under the GOA umbrella.

The new VP related that another aim during his tenure is ‘to twin with other International Olympic Committees (IOC) where we can find support and have good relations with to extend training opportunities for our young athletes and using our diplomatic relations to bring in coaches among other things.”

Munroe noted that there a lot of programmes on the IOC provision that we can benefit from and using the skills and collective capacity of each other to have these sports for all.

The new executive, who will team up with five-time President of the GOA, K.A. Juman Yassin stated that during one of the initial conversations on the way forward for the Association was firstly to remove the shadow of perceived secrecy that surrounds the GOA and be more engaging with the public.

“A lot of the times the Olympic association saw themselves locked in based on their role but more and more in the world we as leaders are required to disseminate information and become more accessible because the public wants to know and we are accountable,” the Vice President said.

Looking to the Olympics come 2020, Munroe shared the opinion that four years is not such a long time and it is not enough when you don’t have the proper training.

“A lot of times we say well next 2020 but really and truly next four years doesn’t give you enough time to really plan for athletes if you don’t have framework domestically to move your sports, teams and athletes to the next level because it requires 10,000 training hours at the elite level to make Olympics and if you calculate an athlete training 265 days a year at four or five hours a day which I don’t think any of our athletes are able to make and you calculate by four years it’s just 1000 hours, far below.” Munroe said