Dr. Lionel Jaikaran regained the post of president when the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Monday at the club’s facility.
Jaikarran, who is an Ophthalmologist by profession, gained another opportunity to head the oldest cricket club in the Caribbean for another term. He will have as his vice-president, the Chief Executive Officer of Sterling Products Limited Ramsay Ali, who is a former Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Marketing Manager and president.
Jameel Baksh returns as Secretary and Pratab Singh the Treasurer with the lone change being Graeme Ali who replaces Philip Fernandes as Club Captain. Fernandes now takes up the position of Committee Member alongside Les Ramalho and Glen Hanoman.
Former presidents Paul Chan-A-Sue and Harold ‘Doc’ Dhanraj, well known statistician Ron Legall, Brian Woodroffe, Jainarine Singh and Jeffrey Fraser will all serve on the Ballot Committee, with the Trustees being Retired Chancellor of the Judiciary Cecil Kennard, Amo Persaud and Jainarine Singh.
As it relates to the auditing of the books of the club which produced such Test cricketers as Ramnaresh Sarwan, Carl Hooper, Reon King, Neil McGarrell, Faoud Bacchus, Alvin Kallicharran and Leon Johnson, just to name a few, PKF Barcellos Narine and Company, has been given the task as auditors.
Prior to the elections, an historic moment occurred wherein for the first time females were allowed to attend and have voting rights at the AGM as a result of motion passed at the last AGM held in December 2013 which stated “ladies members shall be full members of the Georgetown Cricket Club and shall be entitled to voting rights and the benefits and privileges of membership.”
In his report, Jaikaran spoke about the achievements of GCC players that have elevated to the national and international levels and also informed the members of the progress regarding the drainage of the ground and possible flood lighting mid next year.
He also spoke Of the financial position of the Club, remarking that there was no need to make withdrawal from the bank for expenditure. Instead all of the club administrative expenditure was borne from fundraisers for which he thanked the committee for its support.
Club Captain Fernandes made mention of the club’s performances in cricket and hockey. The first division cricket team ended as runners-up in the Georgetown cricket Association (GCA) two-day and T20 competitions.
Raj Nannan was an outstanding bowler, Ronaldo Ali-Mohamed’s was selected to the national Under-17 and 19 teams while the feats of Johnson, Bacchus and Singh, the success of the second division team under the leadership of Devon Lord and Monty Lynch’s excellent job as a Coach.
As it relates to hockey, Fernandes informed the audience of the GCC’s female team invincibility by claiming all four local competitions, while both the male and female teams travelled to Trinidad to compete in the Malvern’s Hockey 5’s invitational tournament with credible performances
In April, Guyana’s men participated in the PAHF Indoor Championship in Uruguay and three players from GCC were part of the team, namely Mark Sargeant, Kevin Spencer and Raphael De Groot.
And just recent as last month, Guyana was represented by a female national hockey team in the Central American Caribbean games in Mexico, where GCC had a heavy presence of females in the lineup.
Those selected from GCC were Alysa Xavier, Gabriel Xavier, Marzana Fiedtkou, Karensa Fernandes, Trisha Woodroffe, Tiffany Solomon, Shekiba Baptiste, Princessa Wilkie, Aliyah Gordon, Ulrica Sutherland, Samantha Fernandes and Ashley De Groot and once again the team performed credibly.
In closing, Fernandes thanked the executives for the support given to him and explained that because of his commitments, he would not seek re-election as club captain, but in any other capacity, hence his new position as committee member.
