Karen Rosen Baugh, the sole candidate for Netball Jamaica (NJ) president, is confident and ready to take on the challenge of leading the organisation to greater heights. With the elections on the horizon, Karen expressed her excitement and nervousness about the opportunity to build a strong team and drive netball forward.

Outgoing President Tricia Robinson’s decision not to seek re-election clears the path for Rosen Baugh, who appears set to become the 12th president of Netball Jamaica. The election is scheduled for Saturday at 10:00 am at The Summit.

“I am ready. I have to be ready since I had put my hands up for this challenge,” Rosen Baugh told the Jamaica Observer.

“So I am hoping that at the end of the elections I will have a team that is ready to work. All the positions are up for election, and so at the end of the elections we will have an executive of president, first vice-president, second vice-president, treasurer, and six directors, and hopefully, that team is ready to rock and roll,” she further added.

With her background as NJ’s director of marketing and sponsorship since 2021, Rosen Baugh emphasised the importance of building a strong team with the right people in place, highlighting her experience in leadership and her ability to manage and contribute to a team.

“I feel excited, a little nervous excitement. It has been really intense last week, but I think we have so much to achieve and so much potential that it’s all up from here,” Rosen Baugh said.

Her experience on the board, which dates back to 2011, has given her a deep understanding of the organisation’s inner workings. Rosen Baugh went on to explain her approach to leadership.

“I think over the years my experience in leadership has shown me that it’s about the team, it’s about having the right people in place, and managing all of their outputs as well as making your contribution as well and setting the right example.

“And so I think we build the right team then we don’t have a lot to worry about, we can lean on each other, we can have people who have strength in certain areas and people who have strength in another area, and we can break down all of the challenges into bite-sized pieces and get the work done,” she explained.

Rosen Baugh also acknowledged the support of the netball community, including volunteers, clubs, umpires, coaches, sponsors, and funders.

“Well, netball deserves some focused attention, and it’s not that it [netball] never had it fully before, but we want to build on what every administration and every president has put out there before and just keep growing,” she affirmed.

“We have a lot of community-building work to do, we have a very engaged, very passionate community of persons who love the sport, a lot of volunteers, the clubs who have invested so much over the years, our umpires and coaches, and then, of course, our sponsors and funders, and we want to keep working with them,” Rosen Baugh added.

With the Netball World Cup now being held every two years, Rosen Baugh sees this as an exciting opportunity for NJ to plan and prepare for the tournament.

“This is really an exciting time for netball, as you know, we have been advised that World Netball has gone to announcing that the World Cup now will be held every two years, we have that to plan for,” she said.

Rosen Baugh is counting on the support of all stakeholders to achieve her vision for NJ and is confident that, together, they can take the sport to new heights.

“And so I am looking forward to pulling the whole community together and for us to be on the same page as much as possible to get the work done. I think I can take Netball Jamaica to greater heights. If I didn’t have something to contribute to move it to another level then I wouldn’t really have put up my hand, I would stay in the background. I am counting on the support from all of our stakeholders to get it done,” She ended.