BOA’s 2023 Annual General Assembly scheduled for next month

The Barbados Olympic Association (BOA) Inc. will hold its Annual General Assembly at the Hilton Barbados Resort, Needham’s Point, St. Michael, on Thursday, September 14, 2023. The highlight of the meeting will be the election of new or returning officers to the Board.

Key positions to which incumbents are returning unopposed are Vice President, Secretary General and Treasurer. Seven nominees, including four newcomers, are vying for the two Director posts.

Cameron Burke is returning as Vice President. He is the Chairman of the BOA’s Allocations and Funding Commission and an experienced Chef de Mission, serving the BOA in this position in all major Games since 2002. Burke has been a BOA director since 1996.

Long-standing Secretary-General Erskine Simmons, who has served in that capacity since 1996, is also unopposed. Simmons is currently a Panam Sports Director and serves on its Technical Commission. He is the BOA’s representative on the Barbados National Anti-Doping Commission and the Barbados Arts and Sports Promotion Fund boards.

Also running unopposed is Orson Simpson, who has been Treasurer since 2017. Simpson, a chartered accountant, is the Chairman of the Finance and Audit Commission and is a member of the Administration, Allocations and Funding and Capital Works Commissions.

Two directors are vying for re-election this year — Craig Archer and Ytannia Wiggins. Archer, nominated by the Barbados Badminton Association, has been a director since 2017 and previously served as a director between 2001 and 2012. The registered civil engineer and construction project manager has been a sports administrator in various sports at the local and regional levels for four decades. The Barbados Federation of Island Triathletes nominated Wiggins, who has been a director since 2017. She is currently the Chair of the Marketing and Communications Commission.

Additionally, Allan Herbert, who served as a director of the BOA between 2021 and 2022 and currently serves on the Education and Capital Works Commissions, hopes to be re-elected.

Three of the four nominees seeking to join the BOA’s Board for the first time are former athletes. They are former national volleyballer and member of the Executive of the Barbados Volleyball Association Nicholas Branker; former hockey player, now sports business professional and coach Dominic Hill; and Olympic bronze medallist and sports commentator and analyst Obadele Thompson. The fourth newcomer is Trevor Welch, the General Secretary of the Athletics Association of Barbados Inc.

The Annual General Assembly starts at 5 p.m., and each nominee will have the opportunity to address the Assembly before delegates cast their ballots.