Dr Cliff Bertrand

The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) is the par­ent body of all sport­ing bod­ies in the coun­try. They rep­re­sent the um­brel­la for all Na­tion­al Sport­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs) par­tic­i­pat­ing in Olympic ac­tiv­i­ties. For this rea­son, they should be play­ing a more im­por­tant role in the de­vel­op­ment of sport or­gan­i­sa­tions un­der their ju­ris­dic­tion in this coun­try. While the in­di­vid­ual NSOs should play a part in their own de­vel­op­ment, the TTOC, with the col­lec­tive brain pow­er of the many ad­min­is­tra­tors un­der its wings stand in the ide­al po­si­tion to whip up tech­ni­cal help and in­ter­est among the del­e­gates rep­re­sent­ing the many NSOs.

The TTOC should en­sure that:

• Their meet­ings are well pub­li­cised so that mem­bers could ex­press their re­spec­tive view points;

• A four-year ac­tion plan should be drawn up and bro­ken down for the ben­e­fit of NSOs;

• They should sub­mit fi­nan­cial re­ports and oth­er­wise of Games un­der their um­brel­la in­clud­ing trav­el arrange­ment and itin­er­ary;

• There should be fund-rais­ing ven­tures and should not be to­tal­ly de­pen­dent on the Gov­ern­ment, the IOC and oth­er sources;

• There should be an­nu­al sports ad­min­is­tra­tors' work­shops de­signed for of­fi­cials of all Olympic af­fil­i­ates. Pre­sen­ters should in­clude con­sul­tants, knowl­edge­able sports man­age­ment per­son­nel, busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tives, med­ical per­son­nel, no­table pub­lic fig­ures and club rep­re­sen­ta­tives. This should be fol­lowed by a se­ries of spe­cialised coach­es' work­shop for all af­fil­i­ates.

The mis­sion of the Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (NOC) is to de­vel­op, pro­mote, and pro­tect the Olympic move­ment in their re­spec­tive coun­tries. The role of the TTOC is to pro­vide the piv­ot around which T&T teams re­volve pri­or to and dur­ing the Olympic Games and to work with oth­er for­eign Olympic gov­ern­ing bod­ies.

In ad­di­tion, the TTOC should de­liv­er ex­ten­sive sup­port ser­vices to our Olympic ath­lete and the na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies through each Olympic cy­cle to as­sist them in their prepa­ra­tion for the per­for­mance at the games. The NOC should be com­prised of a mem­ber from each of the Olympic sports mak­ing up the or­gan­i­sa­tion and its de­ci­sion mak­ing body. The na­tion­al sports or­gan­i­sa­tions are ob­lig­at­ed by the TTOC con­sti­tu­tion to at­tend meet­ings. How­ev­er, based on the an­nu­al re­ports and elec­tion re­sults one won­ders if they abuse this priv­i­lege, thus cer­ti­fy­ing the re­cy­cling process of the TTOC.

Dr Cliff Bertrand

T&T Olympian, for­mer New York City ad­min­is­tra­tor

CON­STI­TU­TION­LAW@aol.com