New Jamaica Table Tennis Association (JTTA) President Andrew Lue has pledged to have an all-inclusive association as he attempts to heal the very deep wounds currently within the association.

Shortly after being elected last Saturday to replace the incumbent Godfrey Lothian, the former national player indicated that there will be a raft of committees that the members can become a part of to help reposition and grow the sport.

“We have 10 committees, and if we are to staff these committees…there is a place for everyone who is worthy to be a member of a committee to help to build the sport. It’s not just the executive committee that will participate in building the sport. I am calling for all hands on deck, so that we can build back the sport better than before,” Lue said.

He promised that his new committee would meet within the time stipulated by the JTTA constitution to get the ball bouncing for table tennis once again.

“We will be meeting as a council within 10 days, according to the constitution, and we will be looking at what are the objectives before us.

“We are going to strengthen the constitution to put things in place to help to prevent what has happened over the past couple years,” he said.

With an eye on the 2024 Olympic Games, Lue said it was important for there to be a youthful focus in order to ensure that Jamaica can be represented at those games.

“I want to revitalise the clubs, helping them to get sponsorship for their programmes, provide coaches — trained coaches, certified coaches. A large focus of this administration will be on the youth. We want for the next Olympics [2024], hopefully, to have a representative from Jamaica playing,” Lue stated.

He insisted that there needs to be a lot more tournaments compared to what has obtained over the last few years, with all the tournaments to be sanctioned by the JTTA for the benefit of the players.

“We want a monthly schedule, and we want broad participation. Every tournament that is held will be sanctioned by the JTTA, whether it’s a club tournament or it’s a JTTA tournament, so that results from those tournaments can feed into the national selection. Players will know that when they compete, they will receive a score that will go towards their ranking,” Lue noted.

With one of the sore points of the last administration being the lack of audited financial statements, Lue said that his administration would become the model in Jamaica.

“Sponsorship is very important. We want to give our sponsors high visibility, whether it be Government, media or corporate. We want to be responsible to our sponsors; our books will be open to our sponsors so they can see who they are dealing with. We want table tennis in Jamaica to be a model organisation for all other sporting organisations.

“One of the most important objectives that I have for this year is reporting. I want at the very least, quarterly financial statements, and to have annual audited statements. If we achieve all of these, we will have done a great deal,” Lue concluded.