Our Readers' Opinions
February 25, 2011
Open letter to TT Secretary

25.FEB.11

Dear Sir: For the past few years I have been silent on the destruction and near extinction of Table Tennis caused by you and your executive.

1)First you’ve changed the term of office for the executive from one year to four years, without the consensus of the General Body, not having a clue of what it entails to run a Sporting Organisation.{{more}} Then you drafted persons to serve on the Association without any general meeting, The few players we have don’t even know who are your members (as a matter of fact, you haven’t had a general meeting in years).

2) You haven’t been able to have any National Tournaments since 2006, senior male and female, Juniors boys and girls nor cadets.

3)You have lost rights to host the prestigious Jim Maloney Tournament all because your efforts to have one in 2007 was an embarrassment to the sponsors and the public on a whole. You started the tournament at Quarter-finals because you only had 8 players who you invited by word of mouth.

4) You have been running a futile Grass-root program for the last three years, which you have now taken to be your flagship program, all in effort to deceive the public. Most recently, you went to the community of Barrouallie, the home of one of your drafted picks, Mr Philcol Jeffers, to administrate the sport, and was only able to get about four persons turning out.

5) You haven’t been able to make any submission to the National Sports Awards for the last three years (I guess you know why).

6) You have denied the youthful players in the country a chance to be top Table Tennis players in the region and maybe the world over by ignoring the opportunities that came before them. e.g. The CRTTF championships in St. Kitts, you sent an observer instead of players. To observe what?

7) You have been distributing Table Tennis boards willy nilly, at Bars, Rum Shops and other places where there are no ongoing programs taking place until you make one of your window dressing visits.

8) You brought a coaching expert in 2010, Mr Dawlaty, here to conduct a Level One course which was good, and I must applaud you for that, but just before him you brought Mr. Bob Roopnarine who is a level one coach from Trinidad, to teach Vincentian Table Tennis players the Rules, which was an embarrassment to our Table Tennis fraternity because a few things he said contradicted what the expert said (lucky). (It’s like Keith Joseph bringing Denzil Jules from Trinidad and Tobago here to SVG to teach Athletics Rules) lol

9) The sport has now become a DINOSAUR AGE ACTIVITY with rivalry among them as to see who the better one is.

10) I heard through the grapevine that you are planning to have a level 2 coaching program soon. I must say this to you, Sir: “You don’t have the support of the inactive young players neither do you have the support MOSTLY of the level one coaches. Your executive lacks the reach out skills and know how to bring back Table Tennis where it once was. You have been in operation for almost four years, yet the “TREE IS STILL WITHOUT LEAVES”. DO YOU WANT ANOTHER 4 YEARS?

11) MANAGING A BUSINESS PLACE IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAN MANAGING SPORTS. Ask Gloria Ballantyne who was a successful sports administrator.

GIVE IT UP, DONT MAKE FOOLISH PRIDE AND YOUR INFLATED EGOES MAKE YOU DO THE WRONG THING. THE SPORT IS AT THE MORGUE. IF YOU STAY IT IS THE CEMETERY, AND WE ALL WILL SUFFER.

Sean Stanley, National Champion 2006