Shorter post today. The picture is of the beach, from my favorite spot, looking left. My typical day begins around 6:15am and includes morning coffee looking towards the sea from my porch. I try and sleep later, but the sun rises early here and the rooster crows loudly. I begin my day checking email, then write on my blog. I then eat breakfast and try and walk to the beach for a swim and to prepare my practice outlines for the day.
Wednesday will be a little different. This morning I have a meeting with Mr. Dei Sylvester at 9:15am to discuss how we will purchase equipment from the donation, try to get the items shipped duty-free, and get all items to clear customs. We must also decide how we will handle the invoice of items and ultimate payment to vendors. There is a lot to decide.
Nanan and I met yesterday after lunch to discuss the particular items we wanted to purchase. We have detailed all items and I feel somewhat organized as to what we want.
Tuesday evening, we had Women's national team training. This was probably our worst day of practice. It started off flat and and everyone seemed a bit distracted, or not focused. Our ball control drills that we start practice with were off and there wasn't the hustle we've come to expect. The frustrating thing was that we had a pretty large group of people that gathered around to watch. Pastor Soukup also came out to practice as did Dei Sylvester. We called a team meeting to change attitudes and try and turn this into a good, productive practice. The team responded well and attitudes got better as practice went along. We worked on transition footwork and began learning how to audible in transition. It went slow!!! Our ball control is average at best and setting still needs considerable work. Our best setter is Betty Ann and she is 39 years old with a bad knee. She is a great competitor and is picking up the offense quickly. Our second best setter is Nieve (sp) from Dominica and she is not yet a Grenadian citizen so we don't even know if she is eligible to play. We have a strong core group of about 8 athletes that are good. After that, there is a considerable drop off, not necessarily with talent, but with experience. We are actually very young and I see this team becoming very good in a couple of years. We must plant a seed this year.
Today (Wednesday), I have that meeting at 9:15am, I then must organize practice outlines for tonight, then we have Junior National Boys and Girls training at 3:00-5:00pm. I then have a 5:15pm meeting with Mr. Richard Simons, President of the Grenadian Volleyball Association, and all the board. We need to discuss our strategy for improving the club system in Grenada and the secondary school system, and I also need to discuss a couple of players that need Visas so they can play. Then at 5:30pm, we have Men's National team practice. I will be late for that, but will attend after my meeting. I really enjoy the Men's team and am truly impressed by this talented group.
Respect and Love.
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