THE Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) last Monday held its Annual General Meeting and Elections of office-bearers and Dr Lionel Jaikarran was re-elected to head the oldest cricket club in the Caribbean for another term.

Jaikarran, who is an Ophthalmologist by profession, will have as his vice-president, the hard-working CEO of Sterling Products Limited, Ramsay Ali, who in his own rights is a former Guyana Cricket Board marketing manager and president.
Jameel Baksh returns as secretary and Pratab Singh as treasurer with the lone change being Graeme Ali replacing Philip Fernandes as club captain. Fernandes now takes up the position of committee member alongside Les Ramalho and Glen Hanoman.
Former presidents Paul Chan-A-Sue and Harold ‘Doc’ Dhanraj, well known statistician Ron Legall, Brian Woodroffe, Jainarine Singh and Jeffrey Fraser will all serve on the Ballot committee, with the trustees being (retired) Chancellor of the Judiciary Cecil Kennard, Amo Persaud and Jainarine Singh.
As it relates to the auditing of the books of the club, which produced Test cricketers as Ramnaresh Sarwan, Carl Hooper, Reon King, Neil McGarrell, Faoud Bacchus, Alvin Kallicharran and Leon Johnson, just to name a few, PKF Barcellos, Narine and Company has been given the task as auditors.
Prior to the elections, a historic moment occurred where for the first time, females were allowed to attend and have voting rights at the AGM, as a result of a motion passed at the last AGM held in December 2013, which stated “lady members shall be full members of the Georgetown Cricket Club and shall be entitled to voting rights and the benefits and privileges of membership”.
In his report, Jaikaran spoke about the achievements of Leon Johnson, Robin Bacchus and Vishal Singh in gaining selection to the West Indies and Guyana cricket teams respectively and also informed the members of the progress regarding the drainage of the ground and possible flood lighting mid next year.
He also placed emphasis on the financial position of the club, remarking that there was no need to make withdrawal from the banks for expenditure. All of the club’s administrative expenditure was borne from fundraisers, for which he thanked the committee for the support given to him.
Fernandes in his capacity as Club Captain, spoke about the achievement of the cricket and hockey teams, with the first division team ending as runners-up in the Georgetown Cricket Association two-day and T20 competitions.
Raj Nannan was an outstanding bowler, Ronaldo Ali-Mohamed’s achievements gained him selection to the National Under-19 team, the feats of Johnson, Bacchus and Singh resulted in the success of the second division team under the leadership of Devon Lord and Montey Lynch’s excellent job as a coach.
As it relates to hockey, Fernandes informed his audience of the GCC female team’s invincibility by claiming all four local competitions, while both the male and female teams travelled to Trinidad to compete in the Malvern’s Hockey 5s Invitational tournament with creditable performances.
In April, Guyana’s men participated in the PAHF Indoor Championship in Uruguay and three players from GCC were part of the team, namely Mark Sargeant, Kevin Spencer and Raphael De Groot.
And just recently in November, Guyana was represented by a female National hockey team in the Central American Caribbean games in Mexico, where GCC had a heavy presence of females in the lineup.
Those selected from GCC were: Alysa Xavier, Gabriel Xavier, Marzana Fiedtkou, Karensa Fernandes, Trisha Woodroffe, Tiffany Solomon, Shekiba Baptiste, Princessa Wilkie, Aliyah Gordon, Ulrica Sutherland, Samantha Fernandes and Ashley De Groot and once again the team performed creditably.
In closing, Fernandes thanked the executives for their support and explained that because of pressing duties, he would not seek re-election as club captain, but in any other capacity, hence his new position as committee member, while the secretary thanked him for his invaluable support and advice.

(Calvin Roberts)