By Neto Baptiste
Head of the planning committee for the National Sports Awards, Cleofoster Harris, said that although last Saturday’s event was generally well received, there are some areas in which the body will seek to improve moving forward.
Harris pointed to the number of nominees who were not on hand to receive their awards as one of the major areas of concern, but he believes that with the right mechanisms in place, that the issue could be eliminated.
“I think what needs to happen is that [there must be] a dedicated person or persons dealing with the invitation process because on the invitations there are RSVPs, but there are some persons that you have to still remind them. The invitations were done both electronically and hardcopy, and associations would have gotten their invitations and an email to say that the sports awards are happening, and you’re now asked to invite your whole executive,” he said.
IFBB Elite Pro bodybuilder, Kimberly Percival, and International cricketer Alzarri Joseph, were crowned winners in the women’s and men’s senior category during the event. Swimmers Ellie Shaw and Ethan Stubbs-Green were the female and male winners respectively.
Harris believes that the new venue, the St John’s Pentecostal Church, House of Restoration, was an added bonus in turning the event into more of a production than in previous years. He however wants more public participation going forward.
“The venue is a wonderful venue because it is one of a kind in Antigua that gives leverage to have an award where you want to do production and going forward, I think a more commercialised aspect should happen where more ads are done to notify the public, and invite the public to the awards itself. We not only invited the associations, and some people were there, and some didn’t get the invitations, so I think it now leaves room for a marketing arm,” he said.
The 2024 edition of the awards is slated for March and will recognise the performances of athletes and administrators for 2023.
