USSA News Vol 2 USSA President Voice February 2018 Let me take this opportunity to welcome members to the second issue of the Presidential voice. So much has happened in the past month since my last communication to members. As the sports movement we take note of the recent cabinet reconfiguration and we welcome the appointment of a first ever female Minister of Sport and Recreation Ms. Thokozile Xasa. We wish her well and success in her new appointment. As the NEC we were due to have discussions and deliberations with the Ministry and the Department about the role of University Sport and the long outstanding matter of College sport following a one on one meeting between our CEO with the Director General of Sport. We thank Minister ThulasNxesi for the support he had offered USSA during his stay at SRSA although brief and we wish him success at the Public Works Department. The USSA Management Committee held its first meeting on the 09 February 2018 to re-look at key policy and strategic matters that had to be done as a matter of urgency before the USSA NEC and the Annual General Meeting. As part of the agreement at the USSA Strategic Workshop, members of the USSA NEC and the Secretariat where allocated certain responsibilities and I am happy to report that all working streams submitted their plans as requested. The next step is for the USSA CFO to allocate the much needed resources and after presenting the consolidated implementation document at the USSA AGM some of the urgent items will be undertaken. The MANCO also discussed the upcoming continental Games both FASU and CUCSA and its with unfortunate that the FASU Games schedule happen right during the course of our Institutional Championships week in July and we encourage institutions to enter their athletics team for the games as it is the only sports code that will not be affected by our compact programme in July. In principle we have also agreed to participate at the CUCSA Games to be held in Botswana between the 18th-22nd June 2018. Although the date seems to be a challenge a discussion between the Head office and the Sports Association is ongoing to ascertain the availability of athletes and officials. A USSA delegation led by the 2nd Vice President attended the CUCSA General Assembly in Botswana on the 16th February 2018. The programme for 2018-2020 was adopted and Lesotho was confirmed as the next host of the CUCSA games in 2020 and Malawi in 2022. The CUCSA election are scheduled to take place in 2019. In the global front we were well represented, let me start of by saying thank you to all our members in the Western Cape who heed the call and went out to support Banyana Banyana when they played Sweden at the Cape Town Stadium. We also thank our members in Gauteng who went out to the Ellis Park Arena to support our Netball National Team when they competed in the quad series. We congratulate the following USSA members on their recent achievement: a. Mr. Riaan Osman (USSA Cricket Chairperson) – he was the SA Cricket U/19 Team Manager that recently competed at the U/19 ICC Cricket World Cup in New Zealand b. Ms. Thembi Kgatlana (USSA Football) – for signing a professional contract with Houston Dash FC in Texas (USA). We wish her well in her new endeavours and we shall definitely miss her. c. Mr. John Wright (USSA Cricket and Hockey Tournament Director) – for being voted as the male Umpire of the Year at the recent International Hockey Awards. d. Riaan de Jager and MzwandileSotsaka (USSA Rowing) for both been nominated into the finalist of the World Rowing Spirit Awards. As a country on a yearly basis we have continued to have nominations and winners in these Awards. e. Tatjana Schoenmaker (Universiade swimming silver medallist), Bongani van Bodestein (Badminton) and Constant Pretorius (Athletics) for being selected onto the CWG Team. These are the three athletes that recently competed at the recent 2017 World Student Games. USSA has up to 8 students selected for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. The USSA Office for a period of two weeks embarked on a road show to provinces to train Sports officers from our member institutions about the new USSA online registration platforms. I am happy to report that the road shows where a success and a total of 69 Sports officers from all our members where trained and all their valuable inputs have been incorporated. We thank all our members for their continued support. We have recently embarked on various collaborations with the FISU media team as part of our process in repositioning the USSA communication platforms. Posted by USSA President on 08 Mar, 2018. Source: