L – R front row: Adriana Herbert, BVIAA; Ephraim Penn, BVIOC President; Chantelle Grant, Caribbean Regional Capacity Support Officer; Lin Crook, BVI Ski Association: L – R back row: Alfred Reid, BVIFA; Phillip Fenty, BVITTA; Antony Spencer, Triathlon; Derry Maduro, BVITTA; Tash Ruscheinsk, BVI Squash; Byron Hodge, BVIBF; Arnold Lettsome, BVI Softball and Damion Brown, BVI Rugby.

Participants hard at work understanding the new database system for Athletes known as `"Zeus"

Ms. Chantelle Grant, who carried out the introductory workshop for Commonwealth Games Canada as the Caribbean Regional Capacity Support Officer, was part of the Capacity Support Programme.

The workshop was conducted to introduce National Federations to a database namely Zeus. Zeus is a web-based Games Management system established by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) for its 71 Commonwealth Games Associations (CGAs). In many instances, National Olympic Committees play dual roles in also being a CGA and as the list of International Major Games grow, their workloads are rapidly growing as well.

Ms. Grant stated that, “Zeus was created to assist CGAs in increasing their operational efficiency and Major Games Preparations. Games preparation and information management is an ongoing frustration for CGAs and the features of the Zeus database allows for increased efficiency in the way the CGA and National Federations can operate.”

The workshop was initiated by Executive Director of the BVIOC, Mr. Cleave Farrington who had attended two extensive regional Zeus trainings in January 2010 and May of 2011. At both sessions, Ms. Grant was a facilitator as she was the Capacity Support Officer at the Bermuda Olympic Association.

Mr. Farrington commented that he was pleased with the federations that attended and the workshop was overdue. “At this time, it was appropriate for the BVIOC to move forward with the implementation of Zeus with the National Federations. The rest of the region and fellow CGAs are well on their way and the BVIOC wants the relationship with our affiliates to continue to grow. Hopefully they have realized that the Zeus database will help their organization function better and are committed.”