FOLLOWING the tragic loss of former Commissioner of the Guyana Police Force and president of the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) Henry Greene, General Secretary and former national champion Godfrey Munroe yesterday expressed the Association’s condolences.
Below is the full excerpt of the GTTA’s condolence message:
“The executives and general council of the Guyana Table Tennis Association wish to express heartfelt condolences to the family and relatives of the serving president of the GTTA.
Being an ardent fan and a former player, his zeal and passion for the sport was truly amazing; many times he would be at tournaments from the commencement to the finish.
Upon his ascension to the helm of the sport he brought an unprecedented level of enthusiasm, vigour and vibrancy to the sport and truly lifted the profile and propelled the sport to new heights.
He truly embraced the strategic vision of the sport and worked assiduously to point the association in developing the institutional structures which would lay the foundation for the progression of the sport in the future, while being passionate about the development of human resources and structures.
This resulted in high-level training for our elite athletes which saw Nigel Bryan, Trenace Lowe, Joel Alleyne, Priscilla Greaves and Edinho Lewis benefiting from high-level training at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Training Centre in the USA.
He was a firm advocate in incentives and rewards for athletes’ efforts and a believer that this was a key driver/motivator for the sport.
One of his legacies would surely be the drive for the decentralisation of the sport which saw several committees set up across Guyana that also led to many more players participating in tournaments and being able to access the game.
He was a firm advocate for capacity building with his advocacy for Guyana’s hosting of two International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Level 1 courses which saw over 40 coaches being trained and certified  in addition to three Level 2 two coaches being accredited and Guyana hosting an international referee and umpires course which realised over 24 trained umpires.
He was also instrumental in Guyana’s hosting the 53rd Senior Caribbean Table Tennis Championships in 2011 which saw him being recognised by the Caribbean Regional Table Tennis Federation for his excellent organising skills and the organising of the tournament.
It also paved the way for Guyana to be given the status to host a Latin American Championships or world Junior circuit event in 2014-2015.
He was a key driver in the association’s revenue generation planning for which committee he chaired as oresident. He always felt that revenue was key to the realisation of the Association’s plans and programmes and worked very hard with members of this committee.
At the last GTTA’s council meeting he was working until 22:00hrs with members to finalise plans for the national table tennis championships, National Schools Championships, the Ministry’s/Inter-Corporation and business entity championships and for other key international engagements for our cadet players along with the commencement of initial planning and formulation of committees for Guyana’s hosting of the 2013 Caribbean Pre-Cadet championships next July.
He was very methodical in his leadership and would always implore upon his executives and council members to go the extra mile.
Undoubtedly, the sport made great leaps and bounds under his stewardship and he would have surely left a void to be filled, while he would be dearly missed by members of the table tennis fraternity, both locally and regionally.”a