… Plant Manager pleased with Club’s initiative

TWO YEARS ago, when the management of Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) were approached by Guyana’s leading youth and sports club, the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHTYSC), to offset expenses for their summer academy, readily TCL agreed. Yesterday for the second successive year, Plant Manager of TCL Mark Bender in the presence of his Company’s Sales and Marketing Representative Eric Whaul, presented Secretary/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of RHTYSC Hilbert Foster with a cheque for $200 000, which will go towards the hosting of this year’s Summer Academy that would last from July 14 to 26 at the Club’s Area ‘H’ location. Prior to handing over the cheque, Bender in his brief remarks said he was pleased with the work that is being done at the Club during the hosting of the Academy, which also focuses on other projects apart from cricket. “Initially, when we got involved with the Club’s Summer Academy, we were pleased to see that they were not only dealing with the cricketing aspect of things, but other projects such as Drug Abuse, Peer Pressure, The Importance of Discipline’ and The Role of a Sports Ambassador,’” said Bender. He added that he is a member of another forum and recently during one of their discussions, the focus on youths and issues facing them in society were discussed. All agreed that something needed to be done to bring the youths who are the future of our country, back in line. “Programmes such as this one being undertaken by RHTYSC would always help our youths and therefore it will attract the attention of TCL and we look forward to sponsoring it even as we congratulate Foster on the multi-dimensional aspect of the Academy and we are extremely happy to be involved this year,” stated Bender. According to Foster, the Club has over the last 15 years hosted the Academy which produced players of the calibre of brothers Royston and Esaun Crandon, Assad and Abdel Fudadin, Shawn Pereira, Shemaine Campbelle, Erva Giddings, Ashkay Homraj, Dominic Rikhi, Brandon Prasad, Khemraj Mahadeo and Plafianna Millington, just to name a few. “Over that period of time, we have won three national cricket championships, (two male and one female), four Guyana Cricket Board Club-of-the-Year awards and over 30 Berbice Championships at all levels. In 2012, our friends at TCL came on board as the official sponsor of the cricket academy and today we are pleased to announce that they have renewed their sponsorship with us once again, for this year’s tournament,” stated Foster. He said that 80 to 100 youths between the ages of 8 and 18, would have been exposed to the basics of batting, bowling, fielding, wicketkeeping and physical fitness by coaches Delbert Hicks and Winston Smith, while they would be lectured on the other topics mentioned earlier. “We are confident that at the end of the two weeks Academy, the youths would not only be better cricketers, but would also understand what it takes to be successful on and off the field, with last year’s Academy producing 14 young cricketers for Berbice at the junior level, both male and female and we are hoping that this year’s Academy would remain on the same path.” He reassured TCL that the sponsorship would be used for its intended purposes, adding that as usual, the Academy would be well organised and would achieve its objectives, while he expressed special thanks to the management and staff of TCL, especially Bender and Whaul, who expressed their continued confidence in the RHTYSC. Foster also said that all the attendees of the Summer Academy would be the recipients of educational kits compliments of some other sponsors including telecommunications giant Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company.

(By Calvin Roberts)