PREPARATIONS are in high gear as the Jamaica Volleyball Association (JaVA) readies itself for the hosting of Group M in the second-round 2014 World Volleyball Championship Qualifier.

The event will again be held at the Alfred Sangster Auditorium at the University of Technology (UTech) on Saturday and Sunday.

JaVA had successfully staged the Group E in the first-round qualifier and subsequently requested and was granted permission to host Group M, of which the Jamaican team is a part.

“There is a lot to consider when participating in these competitions,” stated Major Warrenton Dixon, president of the Jamaica Volleyball Association. “Among them is determining how the association will fund the travel of the team, when generally speaking it doesn’t receive much corporate support. At least we know that if we host the event, the confederation headquarters (NORCECA) will give us a hosting allowance. Of course, it takes a lot of creativity to fit most of your budget into this allowance, but that is far easier than trying to use creativity to get air tickets for 15 people to travel abroad.”

The army man also highlighted tactical considerations for choosing to host the event. “Given the relatively short periods when we get to pull our team together, I assess that it is better to have them play in front of a friendly home crowd until we get them to gel some more. Additionally, there is the advantage of using the event to raise the profile of the sport locally, and hopefully that will help us to attract significant corporate support.

“All the major deliverables for the qualifier have been secured and the team of volunteers is doing final preparations to set the stage for the competition,” the JaVA boss stated.

The qualifier will see the Jamaican senior female team and teams from Nicaragua, Suriname and Bermuda in competition against each other. The competition will take the form of a round-robin in the preliminary round. The top two teams will play off for gold and will be guaranteed for qualification to the third-round competition. The bottom two teams will play off for bronze and would have to hope to be the best third-placed team across all the second-round group qualifiers in order to advance.

Match times are scheduled for 9:30 and 11:30 am and 6:30 and 8:30 pm each day.