SPORT TRENDS: Change of leadership presents opportunities
National sport associations are usually presented with an opportunity to regularly elect new leadership according to their constitutional requirement. This is an important aspect for the associations because most of the time it presents associations with an opportunity for continuity that is topped with an element of fresh thinking and new strategic direction for the association. The Botswana Cycling Association is one of the sport associations that has had this opportunity presents itself this year when it went for an elective annual general meeting in June 2022.
A new executive committee was elected into office. The elections ended with Mr Kagiso Potongwane being given the opportunity to lead the association for the next three years. In a brief interview conducted with the new president, he highlighted that the four major areas of focus for his leadership and his committee will be stakeholder management and engagement, policy and strategy review, development and implementation, events management in alignment with best practice, and compliance. Mr Potongwane indicated that they treat stakeholder engagement with both internal and external stakeholders like sponsors as a fundamental principle of sustainability for the association.
He believes that in order to stay relevant, and to better meet the needs of its affiliates and other stakeholders like the Botswana Police Service and Motor Vehicle Accident Fund, with an aim of closing a gap between the association, the executive committee, the clubs and all these other external stakeholders, then stakeholder engagement has to be prioritized. On the focus area of policy and strategy review and development, Mr Potongwane, indicated that they will also undergo policy and strategic review, as a structured process of identifying new value-creating opportunities for the association, and ensuring implementation of relevant policies. Events management, largely at national level, is also another important area of focus for Mr Pokongwane and his committee.
The intention is to ensure successful hosting of events, and development of race rules that are in alignment with the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) rules, to help with managing events at a national level. So far, the association has successfully hosted the mountain biking championship, cross country, and the road race. They are now left with hosting the individual time trial championship, which will be hosted in November 2022. In the area of compliance, the focus for the association, is ensuring compliance with registra of sociaties requirements at association, club level, and compliance with the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) requirements.
Another focus area, is ensuring compliance with affiliation requirements by the clubs, e.g. payment of affiliation fees. The committee has so far held its first management meeting with clubs, in August 2022 and the next meeting will be held in November 2022, as the intention is to hold the engagements on a quarterly basis consistently in order to address compliance issues and to become closer with the affiliates, who are the key stakeholders for the association. The committee has also drafted terms of reference for a proposed sub-committee which is intended to help with crafting of race rules, clubs have been given the responsibility of nominating members to the committee.
Mr. Potongwane indicated that, the previous committee had conducted a constitution review, which thas now been submitted to the registra of societies. The constitution will give the new committee a 3 year period, as opposed to a 1 year term that was given to the past committees, and the hope is that, this will now give the new committee and other committees that will take after it, an opportunity and enough time to deliver on strategic commitments and leave behind a lasting legacy.