Simone Forbes

Dr. Adams succeeds Marva Bernard, who served as president since 2018 but had indicated earlier that she would not be seeking re-election. However, the Jamaican will serve as a member of the executive as a regional director until the Netball World Cup in South Africa in 2023.

Meanwhile, former Sunshine Girl Simone Forbes was elected first-vice president and Shirley Benjamin of Antigua & Barbuda was elected secretary.  The will join Treasurer Jacintha Ballentine of St. Vincent & the Grenadines and Second Vice-President Javon Edwards of St. Maarten on the executive.

Adams said she was looking forward to taking up the mantle of the presidency and that she intends to continue with the projects initiated during Bernard’s tenure.

“We have started working on several projects, governance, umpiring, coaching, table officiating, high performance and so on and there are some new ones that we would like to do,” she said.

“ We would like to look at the development of the region and in developing the region we will be looking at U14s, U16s, U19s going right up because recently it was announced at the Commomwealth Games that we will have a 14 - 19 age-group Fast Five tournament in Trinidad & Tobago.

“We do not play Fast 5 in that age group so we need to have a programme where we play Fast5 a little more often so the players will be familiar with what Fast 5 is about."

Forbes, a vice-president of Netball Jamaica, was also looking forward to the challenge of improving netball in the region. 

"Two things I would love to see happen, grassroots netball development and playing more competitive netball in the region, and, of course, the athletes having a voice, more player-centered and game centered."

Bernard was reflective on her tenure as president indicating that the executive tried it’s best over the past four years.

"I thought we did our best with the executive with what we had.  We used the development fund that World Netball gave us to up-skill our members until when the pandemic lifted and so we would be in a better position to administer sport in their countries,” she said.

“We trained coaches, we trained umpires, we trained future leaders.  We also did a seven sessions in high-performance systems and structures and we brought experts from New Zealand to help us."

Robinson is replacing Dr Paula Daley-Morris, who spent the last four years in office, is the outgoing president and should have been replaced from last December but the organization was unable to find a quorum and was also delayed by the absence of a financial statement.

Robinson comes into an organization with many problems, as Dr Daley-Morris’ tenure was frought with fighting among administrators.

At the AGM on Saturday, senior team coach Sasher-Gaye Henry was the most vocal of the high-profile members in pointing out to the new boss that there was much work to do.

According to Henry, it is disappointing to see how ‘rundown’ the sport had become in Jamaica.

Robinson will lead a board that includes Simone Forbes, Karlene Waugh, Jennifer Headlam, Keyan Murdock, Wayne Shaw, Leonie Phinn, Denise Wisdom, and Janet Johnson-Haughton.