ECVA President calls for governments’ reconsiderations

President of the Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association (ECVA), Kittian Glen Quinlan is calling on some regional governments and their respective agencies to provide a sport court for those members countries which are still without one.{{more}}

Quinlan made this plea recently, during the staging of the Women’s and Men’s Pool F qualifiers of the NORCECA group of the 2014 World Championships, which were staged in Tortola, the British Virgin Islands.

Quinlan’s comments came against the backdrop of some territories, who are yet to receive their sport court for NORCECA, because of a lack of commitment from their governments to give them a surface on which to erect it.

“We have offered a synthetic surface for our national federations to have control over, so that they can train their national teams both youth, junior and senior to participate in the several events that we have. Now, when we say provide, we mean that, specifically, there is absolutely no cost to the national federation and these courts have a value of about US$30,000,” Quinlan stated.

The sport courts are all-weather interlocking grids which are laid on mainly concrete surfaces.

“However, we are an international organization. We must have certain commitment from the government and from the national federation. One of those is that the court has to be under the exclusive control of the national federation,” Quinlan added.

“It is unfair, it is inequitable for us to accept a government saying to us, look can we play bridge and darts and those other sports on the courts, so one of the criteria is that the national federation must have autonomy over the court,” Quinlan emphasized.

“Once that happens, we can move the court within a period of four months. We will get it from Utah where it is manufactured by the sport court organization to the national federations,” the ECVA President confirmed.

Quinlan pointed out that once erected, it is the choice of the respective national Volleyball associations or federations to allow others to utilize it.

Quinlan revealed that most of ECVA member states, including Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, BVI, Grenada, French St Martin, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Lucia, possess sport courts.

He noted among those yet to make good of NORCECA’s gesture are Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines, as they have not satisfied the requirement of exclusivity.

The current Executive of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Volleyball Association has been making manoeuvres over the past few years, but has been unable to get the commitment from the authorities to get a suitable hard court on which it can erect a sport court.

The ECVA President is also calling on the authorities to reach out to Volleyball, and make the sport part of its social progamming.

“Volleyball is a non-contact sport, physically separated by a net. It is an excellent source for interaction socially without any fear of escalation into physical confrontation,” the ECVA President reasoned.

Expanding on his argument, Quinlan said “When you look around the Caribbean, when you look around the world, when you look around your particular island, you realize that our people are getting larger, there is less activity, there is less physical activity and certainly the governments of the day have to be mindful of the fact that increased obesity levels result in a drain on the social purse.”

He concluded that because of the relatively cheap nature of Volleyball, it meets the prerequisites of promoting civic pride through a structured recreational activity.