Bermuda’s three-man umpires delegation travelling to the 26th West Indies Cricket Umpires Association Biennial Convention in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend will present a proposal on how it can increase its working capital base from its membership.Island trio of Roger Dill, James McKirdy and Hector Watson will provide a discussion paper entitled, “One Country, One Vote” that calls for WICUA constitutional change and seeks to give the association an expanded working capital base.“You can submit a discussion paper on cricket matters or administration matters, anything that affects umpiring within the region and our discussion paper is called “One Country, One Vote, which was actually the brainchild of Stephen Douglas (BCUA vice-president),” explained Richard Austin, secretary of the Bermuda Cricket Umpires Association.“Having been established in 1962, last year was its (WICUA) 50th anniversary, and they are still stuck in how the countries of the Caribbean are divided into regions. You’ve got the Leewards and Windwards as a group, not as individual islands and our rationale is that has outlived its time.“Just about all those countries host Test matches and have their own standing in the cricket world, so what it (making individual Leeward and Windward Islands as members) would do is give them (WICUA) a lot more working capital to conduct our business. Right now it is about $200 that a territory has to pay to the association and right now there are ten territories so that is $2,000. But if you break up the Windwards and Leewards, now you have about 17 countries and almost doubles your membership straight off the bat.”Added Austin: “One of the things that always comes up is the capital and in these economic times everybody is crying out about the financial base. We believe this will set a good structure so that you don’t have to go out and ask for hand-outs.”The three local umpires hold positions on various committees within WICUA, with McKirdy one of two appointed auditors, while Dill is a member of its Training and Examination Committee and Watson a member of the Disciplinary Committee.The theme of the convention is "Celebrating Milestones, Achieving Success” and the BCUA values its input during meetings.“We go in there and challenge the workings, but because we are outside the region itself, when business goes on in the region sometimes we are overlooked,” said Austin.“With McKirdy as one of the auditors and Roger as part of training and examination, we are quite satisfied with the role they are put in there for, but we still challenge them (WICUA) to make sure things can be done a little bit better.”Getting more regional assignments for Bermuda’s top umpires has long been an issue for the BCUA. Austin admits the age of some of the top officials is making those assignments more difficult to get nowadays.“We always push for that, but right now what they are starting to do is go to a younger crop of umpires and sadly for us here, our better umpires are on the opposite side of 40 years old,” Austin stated.“We’ve got some who are coming through, but until we get a solid crop of youngsters to come in and help umpiring locally, it is a big stretch to get them in. That is where international umpiring is going, they are looking for the younger ones and we don’t have any in that age range that fits the bracket. So all our good umpires won’t be able to go into the pool in the West Indies at this time.”The convention in Trinidad will be attended by umpires from the ten member territories Barbados, Bermuda, Canada, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, United States and Windward Islands.Some highlights of the convention include:* Interfaith church service on Sunday* Flag raising and opening ceremony on Monday.* The General Council meeting and the business sessions.* Cricket match to be played between the host country umpires and the Rest.* President's banquet and awards function on Friday, July 5.