WI local: It's Alleyne

Stephen Alleyne was last night overwhelmingly elected as the new president of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA).

The 40-year-old president and chief executive officer of Life of Barbados, convincingly beat veteran administrator Owen Estwick at the BCA's 66th annual general meeting at the Sherbourne Conference Centre.

Alleyne, the acting BCA president for the last seven months following the sudden death of Sir Conrad Hunte last December, polled 211 votes, while Estwick, the association's second vice-president, received 94 votes. Two blank ballots were returned among the 307 distributed.

Alleyne attributed the victory to the entire board of management.

I actually think that I benefited from the fact that the board has worked hard to achieve some objectives and has good plans in place, he told reporters just after 10 p.m.

That is the board, not myself alone. We had a reasonably good general meeting prior to the election and it happened that I was the person who had led the association during that period. Probably some benefit accrued from that.

Estwick, a former long-standing Barbados Cricket League boss and a BCA board member for close to 20 years, graciously accepted defeat.

The electorate have spoken. They want to make Stephen the president and I accept the verdict of the members who attended, he said.

He was however, concerned over the turnout which was only about onesixth of the membership.

That was ominous for me. I do not think that the clubs take these events as seriously as they should.

Meanwhile, Alleyne said his first order of business would be in the direction of beefing up BCA's office operations.

I think that the board is very concerned about the ability of the association to achieve the objectives it has set for itself, he said.

The first order of business for the board will be to address the question of developing the administrative and operational capacity of the organisation.

The vacancy for the post of first vice-president, created as a result of Alleyne's election as president, was filled by former West Indies all-rounder David Holford. Holford received 88 votes in a three-way contest that also involved Jeff Broomes (72) and Charlie Griffith (52).

With Holford being elevated, there was a vacant spot on the board of management which was taken by Clinton Hill, who beat Alvin Burgess