T&T Sec­ondary Schools Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSS­NA) con­tin­ues to re­main on the out­side when it comes to the plan­ning for net­ball lo­cal­ly, de­spite be­ing the biggest con­trib­u­tor to the fu­ture “Ca­lyp­so Girls.”

The an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) and elec­tions of of­fi­cers for Net­ball T&T (NTT), for­mer­ly the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA), are set for Sat­ur­day at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na at 11.15 am, ac­cord­ing to in­cum­bent pres­i­dent Sher­ry-Ann Black­burn, and the TTSS­NA does not have a seat at the ta­ble.

Ac­cord­ing to a source who is close to the AGM but is not au­tho­rised to speak to the me­dia and wish­es to re­main anony­mous, the TTSS­NA has got­ten “no in­vi­ta­tion, no no­tice of meet­ings.”

When Guardian Me­dia Sports asked Black­burn if TTSS­NA will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the AGM.

She re­spond­ed, “Are you ask­ing if they are com­pli­ant? They are not com­pli­ant.”

Back in Sep­tem­ber, the two bod­ies were at odds due to the in­creased fees, which led to the NTT not sanc­tion­ing the schools’ league and, as a re­sult, pre­vent­ed the stu­dents/net­ballers from com­pet­ing.

How­ev­er, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, which the TTSS­NA falls un­der, stepped in, and the par­ties came to an agree­ment that saw the young net­ballers re­turn to the court.

But all was not re­solved as the schools’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives were pre­vent­ed from at­tend­ing an NTT gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing in No­vem­ber. The rea­son they were told was that the TTSS­NA was not com­pli­ant, ac­cord­ing to the source.

How­ev­er, the source shared that the cap­i­ta­tion and af­fil­i­a­tion fees were paid for 2023 and 2024, adding that sub­scrip­tion fees for 2025 were al­so paid.

“The on­ly fee not paid is the cap­i­ta­tion fee for 2025, as the NTT was sup­posed to come back to the ta­ble with the Min­istry to have a ne­go­ti­a­tion on the cap­i­ta­tion fees and what­ev­er oth­er doc­u­ments we need­ed to sub­mit.”

Black­burn said, though, “All of the sec­ondary con­ver­sa­tions have hap­pened. We talked in a very am­i­ca­ble way.”

But then added, “It’s just a mat­ter of them reach­ing out to us and us sit­ting down. I am cer­tain that they have all the in­for­ma­tion that they need.”

The TTSS­NA, though, has not had any cor­re­spon­dence from NTT since No­vem­ber, ac­cord­ing to the source, who added that the Min­istry did send them a let­ter ask­ing them for a list of what we need­ed to do in Oc­to­ber last year.

“As of the meet­ing in No­vem­ber, they did not re­ply. When we went to the meet­ing, we were told they would re­spond in due time, so be­tween No­vem­ber and now, we do not know if they re­spond­ed or not, but we have not re­ceived any cor­re­spon­dence from NTT what­so­ev­er.”

The source shared that they had asked for as­sis­tance with the TTSS­NA “Elite 8” Cham­pi­onships, re­quest­ing as­sis­tance with of­fi­cials. “There was no re­sponse what­so­ev­er. We even in­vit­ed them to the event, but no re­ply, noth­ing, no cor­re­spon­dence came back from their side.

“Sub­scrip­tion fees for 2025 paid. We have not paid the cap­i­ta­tion fee be­cause all of that is up for ne­go­ti­a­tion. They have black­list­ed us. We need to meet with the as­so­ci­a­tion again to dis­cuss the cap­i­ta­tion fees so that it is not paid yet.”

How­ev­er, the TTSS­NA still plans to at­tend the meet­ing on Sat­ur­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, cor­re­spon­dence was sent to NTT ask­ing for an amend­ment to the agen­da over the week­end, cit­ing that they were un­aware about the AGM be­cause the Schools’ As­so­ci­a­tion didn’t have any cor­re­spon­dence from the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body.

“TTSS­NA did keep their end of the bar­gain in Oc­to­ber, and we will con­tin­ue to keep our end of the bar­gain,” added the source.

The Sec­ondary Schools Net­ball League is NTT’s largest con­trib­u­tor in terms of play­ers, as well as cap­i­ta­tion fees, be­cause they have over 1,000 play­ers an­nu­al­ly. Every year, it may fluc­tu­ate, but it’s al­ways over a thou­sand.

The com­pe­ti­tion is the largest league and the largest con­trib­u­tor, if not the on­ly con­trib­u­tor, from where all T&T’s de­vel­op­men­tal pro­grammes are sup­posed to come from.

“I don’t want to have the dis­cus­sion pub­licly and not have the con­ver­sa­tion with the Sec­ondary Schools As­so­ci­a­tion be­cause we haven’t spo­ken yet ei­ther,” said Black­burn. “It was brought to my at­ten­tion re­cent­ly—yes­ter­day (Tues­day), ac­tu­al­ly—so I want to give sec­ondary schools that op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

With two days to go be­fore the AGM, the slates have not been made pub­lic, and in­cum­bent pres­i­dent Black­burn al­so did not con­firm whether or not she will chal­lenge for the po­si­tion yes­ter­day.

She said, “The sec­re­tary has not made the coun­cil aware of who is go­ing up yet, so I don’t want to put that in the pub­lic do­main be­fore they know,” said Black­burn yes­ter­day, un­will­ing to di­vulge any de­tails of the AGM.

The T&T Pri­ma­ry Schools As­so­ci­a­tion, which al­so falls un­der the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, be­came af­fil­i­at­ed with the NTT last year and at­tend­ed meet­ings.

Black­burn said, “Are you ask­ing if they are com­pli­ant? Yes, they are com­pli­ant.”

Ac­cord­ing to the NTT con­sti­tu­tion, a full mem­ber is af­fil­i­at­ed on the con­di­tion of pro­mot­ing the sport and must con­sist of a min­i­mum of five clubs, must have an up-to-date con­sti­tu­tion, pays stip­u­lat­ed fees de­ter­mined by as­so­ci­a­tion and au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment.