MINERAL HEIGHTS, Clarendon — Local netball boss, Marva Bernard, has hailed the Clarendon Netball Association as the blueprint on which the national body hopes to establish a number of parish associations in the very near future.

“We don’t have enough parish associations right now and I’m saying the Clarendon Netball Association by virtue of what they have been able to achieve and how they did it, can show somebody else how they got there because it started somewhere”, said Bernard, president of the Jamaica Netball Association (JNA).

Bernard, who was speaking with the Observer on Sunday at the opening ceremony of the Clarendon Netball Association/Jamalco Open League at the Mineral Heights Complex, said the development of the sport in Clarendon reminds her of JNA’s own struggle.

“I came here many years ago and there where people playing out there in a small car park in their Sunday clothes… they are so much like the JNA, so we are continuously looking at (their) progress”, she remarked.

“A lot of really great things are happening here in Clarendon… you have a very good administration in place and can produce a league like this that is growing… it means you are obviously doing something right.

“You have been able to hold onto your sponsor, you have been able to develop players and people are interested in your league enough to come out and support it,” she said.

Bernard also confessed that as a parent body, JNA has not done enough to help with the development of netball at the parish level, but has promised to make it right.

“As an association, we have not done enough for our associate members, so we must take steps now to correct this and under my leadership I would like to be able to strike that balance”, she said.

And while choosing not to give a timeline, she also noted the executive of the JNA will be meeting with the presidents of the local bodies in the near future to see how best they can assist each other.

“I have asked the JNA CEO (Sonya Hamilton) to make the arrangement for the meetings and if it is going to mean that I will have to meet with them one by one I will do it… but, it is preferred that we all sit down as a group and hear how we can help them to be better and how they can help us”.

“St James has just come on stream with a new administration; Westmoreland is there too, so we need to see what is happening with them”, she said.

Meanwhile, at the opening of the Jamalco Open League, Jamalco with national defender Nicole Aiken in their line-up got the better of Mico University 4-2 in the final to defend their one-day rally crown. Hayes All-Stars stopped Denbigh A 6-5 in the third-placed play-off, while Humble Lion were named the best dressed team.

BERNARD… a lot of really great things are happening here in Clarendon