After the dust settled amidst the chaos of the Guyana Cycling Federation’s (GCF) Annual General Meeting (AGM) which facilitated the election of office bearers, Evolution’s Linden Dowridge was elected unopposed to the helm of the body yesterday at Olympic House, Liliendaal.
In his brief acceptance speech, Dowridge said “I wish to thank everyone who put their trust in me to give me this obviously difficult task.”
He added that “the battle getting here was difficult but the hard work has just begun and there is a lot to do.”
The AGM, which was set for seven days prior, was rescheduled for yesterday after a 45-minute delay which forced an adjournment.
However, with Attorney-at-law Clyde Forde functioning as Returning Officer, Paul Choo-Wee-Nam was also unopposed as first vice-president with Onika Ramsuchit as second vice-president.
At that point, Malcolm Sonaram proposed a slate which was agreed on and saw Enzo Matthews taking up the position of third vice-president, Marc Sonaram as Secretary, Inga Peters as Treasurer, and Malcolm Sonaram as Racing Secretary and Steve Ramsuchit as Assistant Racing Secretary.
The floor agreed on the election of an assistant treasurer/secretary which will be decided at the first meeting.
Prior to the election, ousted president, Horace Burrowes called to order the meeting as the floor spent nearly two hours on discussions relating to the financial reports from the term.
Burrowes explained that it was sorted out for the period 2011-2015 while his tenure was under audit at Ram and McRae. Former secretary, Maria Leung read a letter from the auditing company that acknowledged receipt of the audit and opined that by Monday next it would be available after following a few in-house procedures.
Malcolm Sonaram then questioned who submitted the documents if the treasurer has been missing.
Former President of the GCF, Hector Edwards was also at the meeting and entered into a debate with Burrowes on the constitutionality of barring clubs from attending the meeting, based on two days’ notice which was accepted by Burrowes and the clubs were allowed to stay.
Edwards, who noted that cycling made him the man he was today and said that he invested seven years as President of the body, subsequently left the meeting.
Burrows too, left the meeting.
It was agreed that the financial statements as well as reports from the treasurer and secretary will be presented in seven days.
