Athletics plan mastermind Owens takes up AAI board role

GARY OWENS, who masterminded the Strategic Plan for athletics, has agreed to act as the independent chairman of the new AAI Board for the next two years, to oversee the implementation of the integration process.

He accepted the position on Monday night at the last meeting of the old executive.

The members then elected the chairpersons of the committees who will comprise the new board, although it is understood there was just one vote taken.

With two members absent there was a tie between Patsy McGonagle and Nick Davis for the chair of the coaching committee, which went to McGonagle on the president’s casting vote.

The board, which will be in power up to next April, will be comprised of President Michael Heery; High Performance Chairman Liam Hennessy; Coaching Committee chairman Patsy McGonagle; Finance and Risk Chairman Michael Quinlan; Competition Committee Chairman Paddy Marley and Juvenile Committee Chairwoman Breda Synnott.

They will be joined by the nominees from the Irish Schools Athletic Association, the Irish Universities AA and the representative from the NIAF.

Hennessy, the longest-serving member of the executive, was appointed the AAI’s representative to the NIAF.

“I am happy we have got the right governing structure in place,” Owens said last night.

“We are presenting our business plan to the Irish Sports Council in the next few days and after that it is all action. Hopefully we can deliver to the clubs, schools, athletes and the coaches.”

He will meet Heery and new CEO Brendan Hackett, who takes up his appointment on January 1, just before Christmas.

They will meet the schools on Saturday and when they get the schools and universities on board they will have their first meeting.

They will meet all the groups that are coming in on January 9.

“We are keeping the existing committees but we have redefined their roles. We want them to lead, make policy decisions and let the professional team implement them,” he said.

“The committees will be reduced in April. The coaching committee has been solid enough, it just needs a bit of direction, the High Performance Programme has been solid enough as well, competition is way too big but we purposely have not tackled that one yet because most of the association was all about competition.

“We are setting up an integration group between schools and juveniles and the same between clubs and universities, and then we will have a separate group which will be responsible for working on the constitution which brings everybody together.

“The most important thing was getting the structure in place - getting the covering model, getting professional people in place and putting the strategy in place.

“We are pleased we have delivered it.”

Last night Hennessy paid tribute to Owens for his work in putting the plan together and then selling it to the membership.

“Gary has done an excellent job and we are very lucky to have a man of his calibre on board,” he said.

“I think he has developed a very good understanding of athletics from his broad sweep of the country over the past number of months. A lot of challenging decisions were put before our membership and I think they responded magnificently.”