Ugu Athletics Club is going strong
The club originally started in a garage and has grown tremendously.
Programme director Jason Govender stated that many people start clubs or organisations and fail to maintain them. He was speaking at the newly formed Ugu Athletics Club’s (UAC) first annual general meeting at RA Engar last Saturday.
“We have grown UAC to what it is today! To know that we have gone over 18 months with the club running so successfully is a great honour,” explained Mr Govender.
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He pointed out that the club may not have had a full council at meetings or not all of the runners may have been at the various training sessions or run every race last year, but one thing was for certain – all runners had the UAC close to their hearts and that was important. “So, using the words of the mighty Nelson Mandela, ‘be the difference you want to see’ and let’s take this club forward in 2018.”
UAC chairman Pardon Mathebula said that the community had the right to know how the club was doing and AGMs were essential.
“When we started the UAC, we had weekly meetings and it was tough! But we managed because all members put their heads together for one common goal – to promote active, healthy lifestyles to the Port Shepstone community.” He reiterated that the priority of the UAC was to ensure that all money which came in was ploughed back to the runners. “Through various sponsorships, fund-raising initiatives and members’ club fees, we have collected R43 504.78 with our expenditure being R21 009.89.”
Mr Mathebula paid tribute to the founding member of the UAC, Eddie Ramaloo, who is making great strides to ensure the successful progress of the club.
“For his unselfish deeds, we have introduced a 21km route in his honour, the ‘Battle of Ramaloo’ and we are in the process of registering it with KZN Athletics. The route will be unveiled in the near future.”
President of the UAC, Adam Moosa, reminded runners that this club originally started in a garage and has grown tremendously. “Many runners have brought great honour to the UAC and I strongly believe that we do have the potential of getting them to put this club on the map on a par with KZN Athletics,” explained Mr Moosa.
He said that, with a little more effort, a little more coaching and canvassing by their senior members, this would become reality. “I feel that we need also to go out in search of more runners and increase our membership of 96, which is excellent, but we need to grow it further by taking our club to other areas like Gamalakhe and Murchison. You will be amazed at the calibre of runners that will come out of these townships.” Mr Moosa added that many runners from these areas might not have entered races but they do have the potential of being the Bruce Fordyces of the UAC.
Awards for 60-year and over runners were presented to Navi Nohar, Farouk Naroth, Morgan Moodley and Pardon Mathebula.
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