National scrabble champion Abigail McDonald, would like to see a lot more done for the sport at the national level and is hopeful that the 2012 period will see better support and development for the game.
In a recent interview with Stabroek Sport, the leading scrabble player voiced her hopes, acknowledging that while the game has seen substantial development in the past few years it is still very far away from where it should be.
“I recognize we have made significant strides, [but] I want to see so much more for us than where we are. I have seen tremendous improvements over the 6 or 7 years I have been with the association. “People come up to me often to congratulate me or make a general comment and that by its very nature is a sign that scrabble as a sport in Guyana is not a total unknown as it was in the past but for me personally, until scrabble becomes a household game and finds its way into the school system, then we have failed and I say we because I do not think that the blame lies exclusively with the association,” McDonald noted.
The World Scrabble Championship participant surged back onto the scrabble scene earlier this year following the few months sabbatical she took after participating in the Caribbean Scrabble Championships last year.
McDonald came back to put together a winning streak, championing all five of the competitions she participated in this year, her latest being the recently held annual Scrabble Scramble.
Satisfied with her own personal development in the game, McDonald would like to see a changed perception in the game.
It was another year of lacklustre support for the board game, which is nationally sustained by the Guyana Amateur Association of Scrabble Players, currently being headed by Colin Chichester. The association is preparing to host the second of the biennial Caribbean Scrabble Championship where current Caribbean Champion and national scrabble player, Frederick Collins, will seek to defend his title. Overall the eight member Guyanese team ended in second position in the inaugural tri-nation tournament that was held in Trinidad and Tobago last April.
“We need the business community and the government, who have supported scrabble in parts, to come on board in a bigger way. My hope is that when we send out our proposals next year, the business community supports us handsomely in this regard as well as in our preparations to be a part of the Caribbean Championships.
“We have already shown that we are improving with all these positive things happening for us, we hope in the new year the support will be so great we can spend more time on improving our game and achieving our goals and less on finding funding as has been the case in the past,” McDonald conveyed
The biggest goal that McDonald hopes to see come into realization is the having the game instilled in schools, a venture she said is stalled by a lack of resources, inclusive of a human resources.
“The first step would be to get the game into the schools, it’s a tough order when you recognize the limitation of the resources we are working with which is not exclusive to funding but also to our membership but I know and all the association members know as well that in order for us to achieve the vision we have for the association that is where we must start,” McDonald said.
“I think the misconception is that scrabble is a boring game and I can tell you, we have loads of fun playing. I think its fun to learn but that’s just me and so for me I think we need to change the perception of the game and that will come when we make our way in the schools,” she added.
