New president of the Aquatic Sports Association of Jamaica (ASAJ), Lance Rochester, says his team has already begun discussions on how to advance the sport on the island. He said he intends for the association to make strides in 2024.

Rochester, who served as vice-president (VP) of the ASAJ in charge of water polo for over a decade, was elected president at the annual general meeting earlier this month, after a landslide 46-7 win over fellow challenger Georgia Sinclair, the former VP in charge of competitive swimming.

He will have a relatively new executive with Marlon McIntyre taking Rochester’s former VP position and Hillary Brown-Nixon assuming Sinclair’s former position.

Robyn-Ann Chin-Sang (VP in charge of artistic swimming); Florence Grizzle-Williams (honorary secretary); Richard Hopkins (honorary treasurer); and Michelle Parker (assistant treasurer) are the other ASAJ members.

Rochester told the Jamaica Observer they’ve been implementing a framework that they hope will lead to greater success.

“The process up to the election was one which involved hearing a broad vision for how we would like to reshape the association and now what we have to do is build specific plans out of the vision which many of the candidate would have. It is important for us to bring all our thoughts together, be very specific in terms of the direction in which we intend to go and the engagement will also have to extend our key stakeholders,” he said.

“That process has started but only at a preliminary level, we’ll have to go to our coaches, issues relating to facilities, discussions with our parents and athletes and broad stakeholders and bring everybody on board. So the initial period really has been one of looking on the matters which we have inherited, the carry over issues, the issues that had to be addressed urgently, planning events and selecting teams so we’re looking at moving forward once we get all our minds wrapped around the various issues and charter a unified path. We’re looking forward to rolling out those plans early next year,” he added.

Being a former national representative and a long-time administrator, Rochester understands the struggles of funding the respective aquatic disciplines. However, he’s confident that his discussions with sponsors will bear fruit due to his objectives for the ASAJ.

“We have this wonderful product which we are discussing with them to allow them to understand the possibilities that exist and sharing to them why we are stewards of this vision and mission that can cause them to have the confidence in us by the virtue of our transparency, accountability and governance systems as well as how we engage professionally, internally and externally and really showing that value proposition to our partners because those who have been with us for some time to be even more excited and attract new partners,” he said.

“It’s going to be a process. It’s a competitive market space out there but we believe in our sports and our product and believe those partners and sponsors will be excited about the direction in which we intend to go,” Rochester added.