Volunteers critical to BSSAC

It took just over 100 volunteers to successfully run the 2023 Dasani-Powerade Barbados Secondary Schools Athletic Championships (BSSAC) which climaxed at the Usain Bolt Sports Complex on Friday.
With most of the attention focused on the athletes on the track and in the field, most of the work ‘behind the scenes’ was done by volunteers to ensure the event was run seamlessly.
While he welcomed the assistance, BSSAC’s assistant meet director Andrew Brathwaite maintained that money was critical to putting on a quality event.
“That is our biggest concern, we have always struggled to ensure that we pay our bills. But if we know that we are working for the young people, we do our best to make this happen, as it is supposed to happen. The other challenge is getting quality officials in as well and that’s something that we’re going to have to look at as we go forward,” he told Barbados TODAY.
This year, the first full championships since the Covid-19 pandemic, meant some adjustments had to be made.
“We have tried to keep it tight knowing that the arena is small. Traditionally we would have about 150 officials. This year, we are just over 100 officials for the arena. We had 50 or so officials who were at the field events championship as well, but inside of this arena, they’re a little over 100 officials,” he explained.
Brathwaite said coordinating such a large number of volunteers had been a challenge as they ranged from adults to school age students.
“So some of the adults have the necessary experience, but when you are bringing students it is always a fresh group every year.
“The difficulty comes with regards to making sure that they understand what is required and that the necessary training is provided. Certainly, we have to do training and retraining for adults and if I had to point to maybe an area where we have fallen on this year, it is in making sure that our officials have the adequate training,” Brathwaite admitted.
BSSAC has had a partnership with the Barbados Community College for a number of years, where they allow students from the Physical Education programme to work.
Brathwaite said even though the numbers from BCC were reduced, those who volunteered did a good job.
“I must say that even though it’s a small number this year, smaller than we are accustomed to, I think they’ve done a wonderful job,” he said.
Brathwaite explained that as they seek to improve BSSAC, they will be hoping to get secondary schools more involved in officiating.
“That partnership will come through BAPPSS (Barbados Association of Principals and Public Secondary Schools) where we will identify persons in the secondary schools, maybe five or so persons from each secondary school. If you do that math, that’s easily over 100 persons that you can have. “We want to take those persons through officiating the varied events that are included at the track meet so that we have a core group of trained persons within the schools. We think that would augur well not just for BSSAC, but for the sports meets in the secondary schools as well,” Brathwaite said, while also disclosing that BSSAC had also worked with CSEC and CAPE students enrolled in physical education programmes.
(CG)