BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – NATIONAL sprint icon Kim Collins was assured of a more comfortable retirement yesterday (Apr. 20) when the St. Kitts-Nevis Olympic Committee (SKNOC) officially handed over the EC $100 000 Kim Collins Trust Fund to him.
The fund was established in 2001 following Collins’ very promising performance at the Sydney Olympic Games as a way to ensure that the sprinter’s substantial contribution to the nation would at least be partially repaid.
“We recognized that any athlete who makes a significant contribution to sports development and sports tourism sometimes have to leave their career and don’t have much to turn to, perhaps out of injury. So, it is out of that whole background that this idea of the ‘Museum Event’ came,” SKNOC President Alphonso Bridgewater said at the brief cheque handing over ceremony.
Bridgewater said that a ‘Museum Event’ symbolizes one that could raise a “substantial amount of money” and that was always the goal of the Kim Collins Trust Fund. From its inception, the fund was able to raise an amount of EC $85 653.16 and that initial investment was placed in the National Bank Trust Company with a concessionary interest rate.
In June 2004 after the fund had reached the designated amount of EC $100 000, all interest was then transferred into a private account as designated by Collins.
According to the SKNOC, “To date over EC $43 000.00 has been transferred to Kim in this way thereby showing a yield of approximately 67% on the initial investment made in 2001.”
Special thanks was given at the ceremony to Arthur Sharpe and Jennifer Byron-Nero for spearheading and working tirelessly on the effort, as well as to the management and staff of the National Trust Fund, the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank, the SKNOC, the St. Kitts-Nevis Amateur Athletics Association, the many donators and Collins himself.
The former Commonwealth and World Champion sprinter gave a similar note of thanks and a sneak preview of how he planned to spend some of his retirement.
“I would like you to keep your ears to the ground because hopefully coming soon this summer I will put on my first track and field camp here in the Federation of St. Kitts-Nevis. It will cover everything there is to know about track and field, from warming up and stretching to drugs in the sport—everything you could want to know, being a student athlete, being a professional athlete.
“Throughout my years, I have met a lot of people and they are going to come help me talk about sports while encouraging athletes not just on the track, but also off the track and how they can do the right thing,” he informed the media.
The Kim Collins Trust Fund is one of the most substantial disbursements ever made to an athlete in the Federation’s sporting history and Bridgewater encouraged other sporting fraternities to learn from the work that had been done over the past nine years for Collins.
“It’s a lesson that organizations in basketball, cricket or whatever to see here is an opportunity you could use, a model to follow to really help you—not only by way of the ‘Museum Event’, but also how you invest it,” the president stated.
