 With the possibility of enhancing the upcoming school sports program and the return of active national sports events, Director of Sports, James Xavier and a technical team from the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports undertook a tour of a number of facilities around the island recently. The tour gave the ministry officials a better understanding of the current state of facilities on island. The purpose of that tour was to assess the state of facilities around the island in terms of playing fields and hard cuts, to look at what needs to be done and what renovations we have to undertake. Bear in mind that we are going to recommend the school sports program in this tour and so we were able to assess those that are ready to serve the school sports program but what we have realized is that there's a lot of work to be done on the playing fields. They were not treated to that level of respect which was needed to ensure that they were maintained properly and so there's a considerable amount of money which has to be spent on some of the playing fields. Xavier said he was concerned about instances of vandalism at the number of the venues visited and urged members of the public to have greater regard for the maintenance of these facilities. I also want to note that the disturbing thing that I saw in terms of vandalism at the facility in Larisos and this is a disturbing trend that I want to appeal to St. Louisians to desist from vandalizing sporting facilities. I mean we have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on those facilities to benefit the young people and it really is not good for persons to just come and damage doors and to break pipes and so on and I want to make the appeal to St. Louisians to desist from this practice. The sports director disclosed that the ministry will be better equipped to run a smooth sports program following the completion of its recent tour of venues. From the Ministry of Development and Sports, I'm Ryan O'Brien.