When I looked up the definition of the word President in the dictionary, the following is what I found.

“an officer appointed or elected to preside over an organized body of persons.”

…and then I looked up the word preside and found the following.

“to occupy the place of authority or control”

I always had the utmost respect for the word President and was under the impression that anyone who is a President, whether it is of a big country, or a small organization, is a responsible person, a leader, and someone who does things in an efficient manner.

In the last few years, I have communicated with many “Presidents” in the billiards industry. Presidents of associations, clubs, media and a host of other categories.

My conclusion is that this term has been used pretty loosely and that perception is not always reality. This is not to say that some of them were not doing a good job, but some of them could not do basic things like respond to a phone call or email. I repeat, BASIC things.   I scratch my head and wonder if this might be one of the reasons why our industry is really suffering, as opposed to some of the other reasons I have heard over the years about our game going down in popularity. Reasons like the Internet, Poker, etc.

I would like to stress what I have always maintained, it is the people that drive an industry to succeed, more than anything else. This is one of the reasons why some things are more popular than others. Surely, our industry can excel with all of its great qualities, better than some other things out there.

This memo is a message to all “Presidents” in our industry, and anyone else who is striving to do something to improve it. If you are not doing the basic things to earn this title, please step down or step up, but for the sake of our industry, do not stay in this current place of stagnation, it is not helping us.

If you are not a President and are reading this, and feel that someone out there is not doing things to improve our game, please let them know about it. If you have leadership skills and love one of the disciplines of cue sports, perhaps this can be your calling as well.

If anyone would like to discuss these issues further, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@snookercanada.ca as our plans are to continue to expand into all cue sports disciplines and for many years to come.