Former national netball player Shanomae Pearce-Baptiste has been elected as the new secretary of the Guyana Netball Association (GNA).
Pearce-Baptiste fills the position that was left vacant following the sudden death of Shondell Samaroo.
Pearce-Baptiste was elected last May when the association held its first council meeting.
The position was left vacant after previous secretary, Samaroo, died in a motor vehicle accident, mere days after she returned from St Kitts and Nevis where she chaperoned the national 16 and under team at the Caribbean Netball Associa-tion (CAN) Championship.
Pearce-Baptiste is the latest addition to the new executive, led by Attorney-at-Law, Kim Kyte John, following the last Annual General Meeting and elections of office bearers in February.
According to Pearce-Baptiste she has been around the sport for over 14 years now and when she was told that she was nominated for the position she was elated to accept in anticipation of getting the opportunity to impart some of her knowledge towards the development of the sport in Guyana. Pearce-Baptiste was a former member of the Emanie Netball Club, which is known for producing some of the country’s best netball players.
In addition to Pearce-Baptiste elections, the executives also tackled the putting together of their calendar of events for the year. Speaking with Stabroek Sport, Pearce-Baptiste outlined that a number of new developments that the new Association will be looking into, which will see an increased number tournaments being held for the year.
So far for the year only one local netball tournament has been held, while the national 16 and under team has also participated in the CAN Championships.
The new calendar is said to have begun in June with a “Fever Friday” games night. The “Fever Friday” involves the players congregating one Friday night every month and is aimed at giving the players a chance to interact with each other.
In terms of tournaments, the first one on the calendar is the national 16 years and under tournament that is scheduled to begin on July 1.
The under-23 tournament, which was a new addition to the association’s calendar as of last year, is also expected to be staged in July. Meanwhile, competitions for the seniors are expected to follow in August.
However, instead of the usual senior tournament, Pearce-Baptiste explained that this has been converted into a senior league that is expected to stretch across several months beginning in August and ending next year February.
Moreover, Pearce-Baptiste said, this senior is also expected to see matches being spread out across other regions of Guyana and not just centralized to the Georgetown area as is the norm.
“Most times what we had before was that tournament would last for a while, thee teams would play round robin and then the tournament would be over, but with the senior league teams will have a chance to play each other about three or four times before the league concludes until about February, this is an effort to keep clubs active through out the year.” Pearce-Baptiste related.
“Other teams from outside of Georgetown would come down to play in Georgetown and then the teams would go to Berbice to play teams up there.”
There is also expected to be another privately sponsored tournament to be called the “Audrey Welch Classics, being held in the memory of the late mother of one of the players.
A seminar for officials and another for coaches are respectively set to be held in October and November of this year. Additionally, Pearce-Baptiste noted that the Association will be having their fundraising activities which would include take-away lunch on July 4, a raffle and a cake sale.
