Sports Trust and Hockey South Africa: Development programmes and transformation

Meeting report

Sports Trust briefing on programmes and transformation
Ms Anita Mathews, Operations Executive, Sports Trust, gave two of the programme’s beneficiaries an opportunity to tell the Committee about their experience with Sports Trust.

Mr Ferdi Philander, a cyclist who had joined Sports Trust in 2010, told the Committee how Sports Trust had exercised a positive influence in his life, including in his academic career. He had taken part in the Cape Argus cycle competition, and felt that his training had disciplined him and helped him pass matric with a “B” aggregate, and claimed also that his training had even enabled him to assist others in achieving their goals. Many of the youth in his community now looked up to him and had approached him to ask how they could join. His community faced many problems but the programmes facilitated by Sports Trust allowed for major improvements. He mentioned that although he had hoped to further his academic studies this year, he had been unable to get finance.

Constable Alfonso Michaels, Resource Officer, Phoenix Senior Secondary School, Western Cape, said the Sports Trust had shown a positive impact Sport Trust on some of the learners at this school since the programme was started on 16 June 2013. Constable Michaels always attended the races and practice sessions, and was thus able to see for himself the dedication in these learners, and noted their excitement at being able to travel and see new places. He and other educators at Phoenix Senior Secondary School always encouraged learners not only to concentrate on their sports, but also to enhance their academic work.

Discussion
Mr M Rabotapi (DA) asked if this programme was offered also to any people with disabilities.

Ms Mathews said that there were disabled people participating in the other programmes, but not within the cycling programme.

Ms L Mjobo (ANC) asked if there was a way in which Sports Trust could assist Mr Philander with a bursary for him to further his studies.

Ms Mathews said that Sports Trust was still trying to assist Mr Philander, and at the moment he was busy with courses on conflict management, as well as computer literacy skills. The organisation would in fact try to help him get a bursary at a later stage.

Mr G MacKenzie (COPE) said that it was wonderful to see these two young individuals coming from difficult situations using sports as a way to move forward in life. He asked Mr Philander if he had finished the Cape Argus Cycle Tour race, and how many other Sports Trust members had participated.

Mr Philander said that he did indeed finish the race within four hours, despite the fact that he had an accident during the race.

Ms Mathews said that Sport Trust had 180 participants in the race, but she was not able to provide a figure on how many had finished. There had been 60 participants from the Boland area.

Mr M Dikgacwi (ANC) said that Northlink College, Worcester, offered bursaries to individuals who wished to further their education and suggested to Mr Philander that he should make enquiries there.

The Chairperson congratulated Mr Philander on his achievements.

Briefing by Sports Trust
Sports Trust then proceeded to brief the Committee more fully on the Sports Trust Development Programmes and transformation. Ms Mathews took the Committee through the attached presentation page by page. She noted at the Sports Trust was governed by a Board of Trustees, made up of representatives from the corporate sector; the government sector and the sports sector. It also had two independent trustees with specialised skills. The Board had sub-committees to deal with finance and administration, marketing and projects. These management committees were in touch with the Sports Trust office daily. Internally, it had an Executive Officer, two Project Coordinators, a Marketing Officer and two support staff, and had now also added a third delivery point, which dealt with project facilitation. There were six permanent staff members. The vision of the organisation was to enhance education through sport, and its mission statement included getting previously disadvantaged communities in South Africa to play sports. The Board met twice a year, in March and November. The financial year ran from 1 April to 31 March.

Ms Mathews presented the Committee with a graph, which reflected the organisation’s growth from 2009-2013. Thus far, the Sports Trust had spent R62 million on just over 215 000 projects nationally.

Ms Carol Crawford, Marketing and Communications Manager, Sports Trust, explained that the Trust acted as a partner on behalf of corporate donor trustees, and its focus was on schools and clubs. It was focusing on infrastructure, and was at the moment concentrating on putting up multi-purpose courts, where young people could play more than one sport on the same court. The organisation was also upgrading existing sports facilities. It was also was working together with Swim SA, to install portable pools for youngsters to teach them how to swim. It distributed sport equipment to its beneficiaries, based on the funds it had available.

Sports Trust also ensured delivery of sporting events, like the SA Sports Awards and the National Schools Championships, which had taken place in the last year. Sports Trust would provide quality and safe facilities, which were sustainable and low-maintenance. These facilities should be accessible to the communities and schools, to ensure that everyone, whether abled and disabled, had the opportunity to participate in sports. To date, the Sports Trust had produced 39 facilities to date, upgraded 29 sports more,  produced 16 multi-purpose sports courts and also had dealt with some historical projects such as clubhouses and stadiums all over the country. Sports Trust had many other upcoming events pending, where they would be handing over sports facilities in various provinces.

Mr Obakeng Oganne, Project Coordinator, Sports Trust, briefed the Committee on the athletes development projects. The mandate here was to promote infrastructure, and facilitate sporting equipment and certain projects, to increase accessibility to resources, to increase the number of sporting codes within a community to then also increase the number of participants, and to increase partnerships in provincial departments and the National Federation. Again, the Sports Trust aimed to create sustainable programmes, to increase the participation numbers, to increase the number of competitions, and to increase the number of athletes progressing to the next level.

Mr Oganne presented the Committee with an overview of the number of sport codes and beneficiaries in various provinces (see attached presentation for full details). He also presented the Committee with an overview of the historical projects in various provinces. One of the major projects was the Nedbank Schools Cycling Development Project (Western Cape). In 2005, Sports Trust had arranged for 656 bicycles to be issued to school cyclists in the Boland and Cape Flats areas. In 2012, Sports Trust was even more motivated, when four of the Sports Trust cyclists who took part in the Cape Argus Cycle Race were selected for the Western Province team. Another programme from Sports Trust was the Nedbank Training Kits Programme, where Nedbank provided youngsters with training kits and Sports Trust arranged for professional soccer stars to hand over the kits, as an inspiration to the young players. Other programmes included the Nedbank Road Running programme  in Kwazulu Natal, as well as the Nedbank and Sun International Golf Development sponsorships.

Ms Mathews then briefed the Committee on project facilitation. Sports Trust worked through agents for delivery of certain sports events, for some of their partners. One of the Sports Trust’s partners was the Department of Sports and Recreation (SRSA). The role of Sports Trust was to apply for funds from the National Lottery Distribution trust fund, on behalf of certain structures. In other instances, it would help to facilitate certain events and engage with the service providers to ensure that the sport venues were secured.

Ms Crawford spoke about the fundraising events. Sports Trust hosted two annual fundraisers, namely, the Sports Trust Quiz, which was held in Johannesburg, and the Sports Trust Golf Challenge, which was hosted by Sports Trust together with Nedbank and Sun International. Both these events also gave Sports Trust a great marketing opportunity to showcase its work to corporates.

Ms Mathews spoke about the challenges that Sports Trust faced. The first was funding, and she explained that there was even difficulty now in accessing funds from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund. Ms Mathews requested assistance from the Committee in that regard. She also mentioned that in one case, Sports Trust had applied for funding for an event, but it was provided eventually only after the event took place. Another challenge was the pace of delivery, as communication between government and the Trust had to be speeded up. It furthermore had challenges when it approached the sports federations on new talent, as these federations had to get their own funding in order to assess whether the youngsters had real talent that should be nurtured. Finally, she mentioned that often, after installing facilities in some communities, the facilities would be broken or vandalised.

Discussion
Mr MacKenzie said that it was a pleasure to see the organisational detail in the Sports Trust, but questioned why no detailed financial statements were presented.

Mr MacKenzie wondered if the Trust would also assess, when it assisted a school or club, whether their own governance was in order. He wondered how oversight over different facilities was conducted if there were only six permanent employees.

Ms Mathews said that it was the Provincial Department who would be responsible for checking and assessing governance in schools, as also to check that sports was being actively pursued. She agreed that it was difficult for Sports Trust to conduct oversight with its own internal team, so it relied on the stakeholders who were partners on the programmes. In general, she said that such oversight should be done by the local Sports Council and the Provincial Department of Sports, to ensure sustainability.

Mr MacKenzie noted that many overseas people would prepare and send kits to South Africa and wanted to know if Sports Trust engaged with them. He was sorry to hear of the problems in getting funding for assistance from federations to discover new talent.

Ms Mathews said that in the past, Sports Trust had partnered with similar organisations but this had been difficult as it did not have the kind of resources to do this consistently. Sports trust was not in the business of identifying talent itself, which was the reason why it had partnered with local Sports Councils and the Provincial Departments, who were actually running the programmes, whilst Sports Trust played a role in enhancing them. In those programmes in which it had quite a stake, such as the Cape Argus Cycling Race, Sports Trust had communicated and worked with the Western Province cycling organisations, to ensure that any talent identified was taken further.

Mr MacKenzie asked why the payment from one sponsor was so late, and who the sponsor was. He noted that the National Lottery Distribution Fund, and SRSA were always at the bottom of the list when it came to contributing, and asked why this was so.

Mr Rabotapi also wanted to know how often Sports Trust applied for funds and if they were they successful in this regard.

Ms Mathews responded that Sports Trust did receive a grant from SRSA annually, but it differed each year. It would hear about the 2013/14 grant amounts later this month. Sports Trust usually applied for funding from the National Lotteries, each year, but this did not mean that it would automatically receive the funding every year. Sports Trust had managed to keep its operating expenses to the minimum, even though any increase in the programmes would result in increase in operating expenditure. Each trustee who joined the Sports Trust was asked to put R1 million into the Organization’s C-Capital. This money then would be invested as a hedge against the times when the Trust may not get funding, and the interest on the capital was put to operating costs. However, she noted that there had been some positive discussions with SRSA, building on the relationship and the number of programmes, and it was possible that the Sports Trust may be getting a bigger grant and more resources. However, it wanted to get confirmation of this in writing before proceeding with the programmes.

Mr Rabotapi complimented the diversity in the Sports Trust. He asked if there were any cases where the Trust had had to relocate facilities because of the vandalism problems.

Ms Mathews said that there had been a situation in Gauteng, where the community had vandalised a facility. Sports Trust had repaired the facility twice, then removed it, because the funders were also concerned that the community was not taking ownership. That facility was now in storage, and the Sports Trust was busy identifying another community to whom it could be moved.

Ms G Tseke (ANC) complimented the Trust on its service delivery and referred to various sports facilities that it had installed in different provinces. She wanted to know why the Northern Cape was not listed, and if there were any facilities in that area. She also wanted to know if the organisation received any funding for maintaining facilities after they were handed over to the municipalities. She asked also how those in the deep rural areas could access the facilities.

Mr Dikgacwi also wanted to know why Sports Trust seemed to pay less attention to facilities in the township areas, compared to other areas, and asked if it had included a maintenance plan when applying for funds from the National Lottery.

Ms Mathews confirmed that the organisation had indeed done a few infrastructure programmes in the Northern Cape area. It would love to do more in the rural areas, but funding was a challenge.

Sports Trust had always ensured that it had a maintenance plan, and that there were agreements in place with the municipality and communities. However, because of problems in the past, Sports Trust tried always to ensure that the facilities it erected would require minimal maintenance. In some areas, the community itself was doing the maintenance. When Sports Trust received funding, it would ask the stakeholders where they felt the ideal place was to erect the facility and it was also guided by the funders themselves, who may have expressed a preference to invest in a certain community. The reason for applying for National Lottery funding was so that Sports Trust also had some choice in where to erect the facilities. Every school where facilities were placed would be asked to sign an agreement to confirm that everyone in the community could get access to and use the facilities, including other schools and the local Sports Council.

Ms G Sindane (ANC) referred to the Gymnastic Project in Mpumalanga, asked where it was, and if it was presently operating.

Ms Mathews handed Ms Sindane a document which reflected all the projects to date, and indicated exactly where the Mpumulanga Gymnastic Project was operating.

Mr Dikgacwi asked how broadly the Sports Trust would consult, prior to putting up a facility. He also wanted to know if it interacted with the municipality, so that the latter could assist in taking care of the existing sporting facilities.

Ms Mathews said that there was quite broad consultation and cited the example of Harmony, one of the trustees, who chose to invest in the mining communities. Sports Trust would approach the provincial departments where Harmony indicated an interest in investing, who would identify the relevant schools. The Sports Trust would also get in touch with the municipalities, local councils and other stakeholders. Full consultation was done.

Mr M Hlwengwa (IFP) wanted to know to what extent the Sports Trust played a role in school learner’s lives, as he believed that education went hand in hand with sports. The learners must have something to fall back on if their sporting careers did not succeed.

Ms Mathews said that the Sports Trust had heard many educators comment that when the Sports Trust put up facilities, they had seen a remarkable turn around and improved academic discipline and attitude also result from the learners who now had access to sporting facilities.  

Ms Sindane said that she believed that the choice of provinces that needed facilities should rest with Sports Trust, not only the funders, otherwise the Trust would be failing to fulfil its mandate, and enquired how Sports Trust would execute that mandate if it did not have an influence on the beneficiaries.

Ms Mathews agreed that it could be said that Sports Trust was being directed by investors and other stakeholders. However, the Sports Trust would ideally like to achieve a fair spread of its services across all the provinces.

Mr Mervin Green, General Manager, South African Rugby, said that he had been with South African Rugby for the past twelve years, and had found the Sports Trust to be the most professional non-profit organisation. He appealed to the Committee to support the Sports Trust and assist it in overcoming the challenges.

The Chairperson congratulated Sports Trust on its work and offered it the Committee’s support.

South African Hockey briefing
Mr Gary Dollie, Project Manager, South African Hockey, indicated that the key values of South African Hockey (SAH) included promotion of social justice and good corporate governance. SAH’s mission was to achieve a single integrated hockey system, which included consistent pathways, a national coach accreditation process at various levels that included a facilitator’s course, setting of protocols, coach development, setting of clear roles and responsibilities, a focus on competition and on setting up a nationally-driven academy.

Ms Lwandile Simelane, Vice President, South African Hockey, noted the current alignment of SAH with the National Sports Plan. South African Hockey had updated its constitution in 2012. It held an Annual General Meeting, as well as two council meetings a year. The Board met quarterly. Auditing was done annually. Elections were held every two years. SAH kept full records of the various meetings, had a database of members and a strategic plan.

The database on grass facilities was described as work in progress. The database for artificial facilities was in place. SAH was also looking at multipurpose facilities, but was waiting for feedback on this from the SRSA. SAH had a good relationship with other organisations, including the Olympic Committee (SASCOC), the national SRSA, Federation of International Hockey and African Federation of Hockey. SAH did have a Transformation Charter, but the transformation scorecard was still work in progress. Another matter currently being worked upon was provincialisation. There was in place a coach accreditation system and the database for coaches.

Ms Marissa Langeni, Chief Executive Officer, South African Hockey, spoke about the economic spin offs and benefits , noting that South African Hockey had a direct investment in the economy. It had constructed 105 synthetic surfaces, and had estimated a R500 million spin-off from the sport in this respect. The sport also promoted job creation, as ground staff, booking officers, and sports scientists were employed. South Africa had been able to host international tournaments because of its good standard of facilities and good weather.

Ms Langeni noted that the South African Hockey men’s team was ranked number 11 in the world, and number 1 in Africa. The Ladies team was ranked number 10 in the world and number 1 in Africa. South African Hockey had many role models like Pietie Coetzee, top goal scorer,  Marcia Marescia, South African Captain, and also Silver Malele, who won the South African Sport and Recreation Department Volunteer of the year award, for bringing hockey to the under privileged youngsters.

Mr Dollie spoke about SAH’s core functions, which included growth of the game of hockey at all levels, organising national and international competitions, developing education and training frameworks for coaching, technical officiating, administration, ensuring good corporate governance, developing a high performance strategy, developing a national marketing and sponsorship strategy and growing and expand the revenue base.

Mr Dollie also explained the development strategy of categorisation in the different provinces. Level one would be an introductory level for juniors, level two would be the school leagues, level three would be the club structures operating in districts, and level four would be high performance. He noted that SAH had established partnerships involving 1 000 primary schools, 550 high schools, 8 000 seniors in the club sector and about 15 strong universities.

Mr Wendell Domingo, Schools Chairperson, spoke about the products and services, particularly the competitions. SAH facilitated zonal school leagues, hockey festivals in different age groups, the national tournaments, the local Senior Club Leagues and national tournaments.

Mr Dollie went through the coach education system, in line with the National Accreditation Scheme, explaining the different levels of courses.

Mr Domingo then briefed the Committee on the growth strategy in 2013. SAH would like to introduce hockey into the new districts and communities, include modified sport into its life orientation curriculum, promote coach education and target 1 500 schools to participate actively to ensure local league participation. It would support and monitor progress.

Performance indicators looked to the number of schools participating, the level zero coaching courses, Mass Participation festivals in regions, participants in district and provincial training squads, the numbers of community based clubs and improved international ranking. He noted that SAH categorised the regions, from junior introductory, to high performance. He presented a rubric which reflected the player pathways in the different age groups. He also took the Committee through a graph of the number of players in the different provinces. He then referred to the Club Development and High Performance Hubs in 2013 in the different regions (see attached slides for details).

Ms Langeni described the projected income. SAH hoped that National Lottery funding would amount to R2 million, although in the past it had received between R5 million and R6 million annually. It was hoped that SRSA would allocate R1.5 million. Investec was offering R2.3 million, specifically for the women’s team. The members who were actively participating in leagues were levied annually, and SAH had estimated that the membership fees would amount to R1 million this year.

Ms Langeni mentioned a few individuals and teams who had been making impact recently, including Moabe Malebye, the highest ranking of hockey coaching,  Sanani Magisa, top Senior Ladies Goal Keeper, Nathi Ngubani, who was responsible for the Rural Development Programme in Kwazulu Natal,  Pat Smith and Laeticia Goldman, who were responsible for the Rural Development Programme in the Eastern Cape, and Silver Malele, who was responsible for the Silver Stars Hockey Club from Diepsloot.
The South African Men’s National team clinic in Bloemfontein had made a fine impact, and the South African Ladies team clinic was selected for the Olympics after a tour in India.

Ms Simelane presented the Transformation Target pointing out the number of black and white members of the Executive Board, all the teams, the staff and provincial teams as well (see attached presentation).

Ms Langeni said the major challenge facing SAH was lack of funding. The resources given to the federations did not match the responsibilities. There was also a lack of TV and media exposure for hockey. There remained a shortage of facilities in previously disadvantaged communities. SAH did not have enough funding to cover the cost of equipment. There were concerns around the sustainability of Club Development Projects.

Discussion
Mr Rabotapi asked, in relation to the team’s Number 1 ranking in Africa, how many countries participated.

Ms Langeni said that there were on average 23 to 27 nations who competed from Africa.

Mr Rabotapi commented that he had heard that a black girl had been nominated by her school to participate in the Bokkie Week Event in Rustenberg. When she arrived at the competition, she was told that this competition was just meant for white girls. This kind of attitude severely dented the image of the sport.

Ms Simelane responded that Hockey South Africa had taken decisive action on Bokkie Week, and had resolved that those schools that allowed their learners to participate in a non-inclusive event would not receive school colours and would not be able to take part in the school provincial competitions.

Ms Langeni also said that she had dealt with the organisers of Bokkie Week in 2010, who threatened to take Hockey South Africa to the Constitutional Court, because they sought to justify their events as a social, communal event and cultural festival for white Afrikaaners. She confirmed that SAH did not recognise this tournament and it had nothing to do with the national Federations. She had personally sent letters to SRSA expressing her concerns.

Mr MacKenzie agreed with Ms Langeni, and said that the same situation had happened in rugby, and agreed that there was a need to get rid of organisations running these kinds of events, as they were not representative of the country.

Mr M Mdekazi, Committee Researcher, wanted to know if Hockey South Africa was aware of the Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) for metros and Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) in municipalities, and if it engaged with the departments try to help with funding.

Ms Langeni said that SAH did constantly engage with the SRSA to try to obtain more funding. There was quite a large debate at the Sports Indaba as to where MIG was supposed to reside, and who could benefit from it. SAH faced challenges at municipal levels, but was able to react more quickly in relation to international tournaments. For instance, SAH was promised a new roof at Hartleyvale Stadium in Cape Town during 2007, but it was erected only in 2011.

Mr Hlwengwa wanted to know to what extent Hockey South Africa was engaging in public broadcasting, and if it had a “wish list” that it could show to potential sponsors.  

Ms Langeni said that the public broadcaster (SABC) had covered some of the Ladies Hockey events, but SAH had not managed to secure live coverage of tournaments and games. In regard to the “wish list”, she said that Hockey South Africa did have its international calendar for the different age groups, and would like to participate in those events.

Mr MacKenzie, who was from Kwazulu Natal, was not aware of many artificial facilities in that region, and questioned the reach of hockey in that province. He questioned how SAH had managed to put up 105 synthetic surfaces, given the high cost and their shortage of funding, and asked where exactly they were. He asked also if the artificial surfaces were in schools in rural areas, or only in the urban areas.

Mr S Mmusi (ANC) also wanted to know what the state of the transformation of Hockey was in rural areas.

Mr Dollie confirmed that Hockey South Africa currently had 105 facilities, and had a database reflecting all these facilities and the areas where they were situated.

Mr MacKenzie reiterated that they appeared all to be in urban-based schools.

Mr Michael du Plessis, President, South African Hockey said that Hockey South Africa would definitely have to look into spreading into the rural areas in the next few years.

Mr MacKenzie noted that SAH claimed to have a good relationship with SASCOC, but in the past he had read about SASCOC stopping hockey participation in some tournaments. He wanted to know if this had changed.

Ms Langeni confirmed that Hockey South Africa had made forward in huge strides in that respect, and the Federation had consciously taken it upon themselves to nurture this relationship.

Mr MacKenzie thought that the issue with the National Lottery Distribution Fund should be taken up with them. He also thought Investec should be looking at the men’s hockey as well as women’s league. He noted that recently, in Japan, the men’s team had done well, but asked what had happened to the ladies’ team.

Ms Langeni said that Investec felt that it was already supporting many male dominated sports, such as rugby and had specifically decided to support the women’s team. She noted that the structure of the tournaments had changed and that the women’s team had finished in 5^th place, despite the fact that it had essentially only lost one game.

Ms Sindane wanted to know how the Adopt a School Programme worked in disadvantaged areas.

Mr Dollie noted that selection of schools, especially in disadvantaged areas, was done through hubs. For instance, Duncan Village in the East London areas was chosen, and the Duncan Village Hockey Club would select the schools, based on sustainability considerations.

Ms Sindane suggested that Hockey South Africa should uphold its involvement by being part of that selection process, without relying solely on the local club.

Mr Dikgacwi referred to the statement that SAH was aligned with the National Sports Plan, and the statement that the transformation score card was work in progress. He asked what would be the penalty for regions that failed to comply.

Ms Simelane responded that alignment with the National Sports Plan was no longer a demographic discussion, and with the amendment of Hockey South Africa’s constitution, the provinces had a better understanding of what the penalty would be. A province who did not comply would not be permitted to take part in a national tournament, or would not be permitted to affiliate, and its players could be barred from national teams. The province may also lose its own vote in council and could pay certain financial penalties for failure to comply.

Mr Dikgacwi also referred to the mass participation and said that it would be difficult to monitor if there was no time frame fixed.

Mr Dikcagwi said that there was a netball tournament recently, and the Minister helped the Federation get coverage with Super Sport. He suggested that Hockey South Africa should engage with various sponsors also.

Ms Tseke suggested that Hockey South Africa should use the accepted acronym “SRSA” for the national Department of Sport.

Mr Dikgacwi (Acting as Chairperson at this point) noted that more interaction was needed with SAH, so that the Committee could assist it.

The meeting was adjourned.