The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

RETURNED president Wellington Miller, accompanied by newly elected vice presidents Cora Hepburn and Derron Donaldson, are scheduled to leave town today for Lima, Peru, to attend the World Conference of the International Olympic Committee’s Sports for All programme.

Miller, who was re-elected to serve his second four-year term as president, said this will be an opportunity for the BOC to find out how it can follow the IOC’s mandate of developing sports for everybody to participate in.

“I think we will come back with some new plans and some new ideas on how we can promote sports in the Bahamas and allow them to see sports in a different light,” Miller said.

“We want to spread sports more out in the inner city as we try to push sports forward.”

Having gone through a complete change with the election of a virtually new executive board, Miller said the officers are all ready to work and that is what is needed to carry the organisation to the next level.

“With this group of executives who are prepared to work, you are going to see a BOC that will leave a shining part for sports, something that we will all be proud of,” he said.

While the trio are heading off to Peru, another vice president Robert Butler is in Lausanne, Switzerland, doing a seminar on the Science of Sports.

“We’re going to make this organisation one that everybody will be proud of,” Miller said.

Twenty four-year-old Donaldson, the youngest person to be elected to serve on the executive board, said he’s still overwhelmed by being an officer.

“Everything is new to me, so I’m just trying to keep it all in perspective,” said the president of the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association.

“I’m trying to put it all in perspective and try to go there and bring back as much knowledge as possible. I’m travelling with Cora Hepburn, who has been around very long and is very seasoned and very enthusiastic and aggressive. She is a mentor figure in the organisation to log onto and so just to travel with her is exciting. I hope that we can come back and put on a seminar so that they can learn from the experience that we have gained over there. We are prepared, excited and ready to go.”

As the youngest member of the team, Donaldson said he has been received with open arms and while his portfolio will probably be on the youth movement, he’s well respected and he hopes to capitalise on the relationship that he has developed so far.

Hepburn, on the other hand, said it’s a positive and early step to get the newly elected executives trained and she welcomed the opportunity to participate in the conference.

“The topic ‘Sports for All’ is definitely something that we need here,” she said.

“I always say to people that you can look everywhere around in the Caribbean and you can see every little boy or girl kicking around a ball or playing some type of sports on the park. We need to get that going here and this is one of the things we hope to establish when we return from the conference.”

On travelling with Donaldson, who is just getting his feet wet in the organisation as well, Hepburn said they have a good ingredient as he is “very energetic and I have the experience. So I guess that is a team.”

And on how she’s coping so far in her new role as a vice president, Hepburn said she’s making the necessary adjustment with her full-time job.

“That is something that I will have to see how best I can address,” she said. “I know it’s going to be time consuming, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”