MONTEGO BAY, St James — After three years of working behind the scenes, the three-year-old St James Table Tennis Association is ready to reintroduce the game to Western Jamaica through a pilot project involving six primary schools here.

One of the schools — Corinaldi Primary — has already been outfitted with training equipment.

The other five — Greenpond Primary, Albion All-Age, Barracks Road Primary, Mount Salem Primary and Junior High and Catherine Hall Primary and Corinaldi Primary- will be outfitted with boards and rackets by the end of the month.

“These are the schools that are closest in proximity to the Montego Bay cricket club and that have been coming out to train with us on Saturdays,” said Denville Reid, President of the association.

Reid, the principal of the Trinity Pharmacy, heads an executive comprising:

* Vice-President, Donovon James, Principal of North Western Development Limited;

* Treasurer, Ornell Bedassie, Regional Manager, Pan Caribbean Bank limited;

* Assistant Treasurer Courtney Wilson, Vice President, First Global;

* Secretary, Myrtle Wedderburn, Constabulary Communications Network;

* Public Relations Officer, David Oliver, Principal of the Reflecions Day spa.

According to Reid, who returned to Jamaica from New York in 2007, his association is working to build up awareness of the sport through an inaugural international tournament that it hopes to host at a venue to be announced in Western Jamaica in June.

In preparation for that event, the association will host a Kiddies tournament in March at which it will select the team for June.

In the meantime the team is trying to locate lands in western Jamaica on which to build a state-of-the-art facility to host the sport.

“We are going to engage the Urban Development Corporation in this regard because we want to build something sustainable for future generations,” said Reid.

Reid who was introduced to the sport in the sixties when he was a student at the Harrison Memorial School, lists as his contemporaries Ian Spencer, Courtney Wilson and Donovon James. He also recalls that the Reverend Frank Smalling was instrumental in making the game acccessible to him.

“Ian and Courtney stuck with it and went on to achieve national prominence, but I gave it up for football,” he said.

Now he’s back in the game, so to speak, and eager to pass it on.

To that end he has rallied the support of friends who have donated cash and kind to the association.

“Dr Horace Fletcher donated twenty rackets to the programme; Dennis Shipping has also contributed as well as our VP, Donovan James,” he said.

Additionally the association is also engaging experts from overseas to work with the youngsters.

“We believe that table tennis has a great future in Jamaica and we are working with the Jamaica Table Tennnis Association (JTTA) to make it happen,” said Reid.