Sport Information Centre to become a repository

The commissioning of a Sport Information Centre and Museum on the ground floor of Olympic House,Villa Point, is set to become a repository for sports information here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Established by the St Vincent and the Grenadines Olympic Committee (SVGOC), the facility was officially opened last Tuesday, April 30, 2024.

Keith Joseph, general secretary of the SVGOC, who piloted the undertaking, along with the office staff, hailed the facility as an accomplishment on the local sporting landscape.

“ It is a small start but we hope that it is something that will allow our students who see sports as a career pathway to come visit, do their research, and add to the storehouse of knowledge about sports in our country,” Joseph commented.

Outfitted with computers and other technological apparatus, the information centre and museum, also boasts artefacts and memorabilia of St Vincent and the Grenadines’ participation at international championships.

In addition, the SVGOC, over the years, has recorded material of events of the organisation, as well as personalities.

“We have booklets we have done on our Junior Olympians…we have also produced a book on Gloria Ballantyne as the nation’s First Lady of Sports… “We do have a number of materials that we would put onto our archival system so people can come and access them,” Joseph added.

He, however, believes that an opportunity now presents itself for students, along with national sporting associations, unions and federations, to have their history retrieved or archived.

“It (The Sport Information Centre and Museum) is also a means of encouraging students when they do their projects to afford us an opportunity to remain in our system so that we can come back and see some of the works that our students are doing, especially at the Community College where they are doing the Associates Degree.”

To the national sporting bodies, Joseph advised: “Whatever you have within your own sport you can also bring it and archive it here, so we can become a repository of sports history …when you are a part of something write it quickly before you forget it (because) others will come and distort it- whatever we have on Cycling, whatever we have on Basketball, the changing dynamics of Squash”.

In turn, president of the SVGOC, Stephen Joachim called on Joseph to re-produce a book he had written, close to 25 years ago detailing the start of the Olympic Movement in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

“ Update the book so that we can have our own Olympic Committee history, because it will be really sad for us to stand here one day and don’t know what had happened between 2000 and 2030 whatever the case may be,” Joachim said.

The National Olympic Academy, which is the education component of the SVGOC, will undertake the administration of the facility.