OLYMPIC COUNCIL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20465, 9 July 1936, Page 13

OLYMPIC COUNCIL

DESIRE FOR CHANGE OF CONSTITUTION recommendations by OTAGO By Telegraph—Press Association DUNEDIN, July 8. A meeting of the sub-committee appointed by a conference of local sporting organisations which was held in May last to discuss proposals for amending the present constitution of the Olympic and Empire Games Association and to consider that body’s method of team selecting was held this evening, Mr W. A. Jenkins presiding. Mr G. L. Tapley suggested that the present members of the Olympic Association should be asked to resign and the association be reconstituted. Mr Tapley urged that two members representing all the sports bodies in Otago concerned in the Olympic Association should be appointed to represent all branches of sport In the province, and other provinces throughout the Dominion should be asked to convene a similar meeting and do likewise. These various provincial representatives would then become new members of the Olympic and Empire Games Association. A sub-committee was set up to consider these recommendations. A copy of the rules of the association was read and disclosed that these provided for the formation of district councils. Mr Vallis pointed out that such councils with proper power were what the conference aimed at establishing. He maintained that the Olympic Council should be so constituted that its selectors should be present at every national championship meeting. He did not see why national associations should come into the matter at all. The selection could be carried out by a committee of the council from the nominations put forward by the district councils. The meeting expressed agreement with Mr Vallis’s opinion and it was decided to advise the Olympic Council that one of the principal reasons for advocating a change of its constitution was so that the nominations of candidates for Olympic games could be taken out of the hands of the National Associations and dealt with by District Olympic Committees. These committees would forward such nominations to the New Zealand Olympic Council, whose selectors would then choose competitors to represent New Zealand after seeing them in action at their respective national championships. A motion was carried, “That the Olympic Association be advised that if, in accordance with the rules, it is proposed to form a District Council in Otago representative of all sports, and that steps are to be taken to have similar organisations formed in other centres, these Councils to appoint delegates to comprise the New Zealand Council.”