14 August 2017
To the membership and stakeholders
Cycling South Africa
Dear Members and Partners
Project – “Thinking Forward – Cycling South Africa toward the future”
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” Lyndon B. Johnson
Cycling South Africa has acknowledged its current financial challenges and the fact that the auditors have declared the organisation technically insolvent as well as reporting certain irregularities. We have informed our parent bodies SRSA, SASCOC, the UCI and the Confederation of African Cycling(CAC). We take this matter very seriously and will work with the relevant entities to remedy our situation.
Fundamental to the remedial action is to acknowledge the short comings within the organisation and to plot a way forward to address them. This we have done and our Executive and Management Committee are totally committed to rectifying our situation. We have also engaged with some important stakeholders who have given valuable input and support for the reform of Cycling South Africa.
We have witnessed a declining membership, yet this is easily fixable.
This quote from the Eminent Persons Group(EPG) on Sport Transformation in South Africa gives us the answer :
“The Transformation Charter, is the loadstar of the sport movement that draws our attention to the immediate and inevitable need for the Sport System to Transform for both Moral and Strategic imperatives:
Morally: Because it is “the right thing to do” considering the grave injustices of the past;
and
Strategically; because of the reality that 84% of the country’s under 18 year old population grouping is Black African and only 16% is white, Coloured and Indian. To ignore this strategic reality from sustainability perspective alone would be suicidal. Thus the reasons for sport organisations to transform rapidly have not only become compelling it had become fundamental.”
We have a whole new breed of riders taking up the sport of cycling wanting to be part of Cycling South Africa, but they do not know how to do this or have not been given the opportunity. With a population of 50 million plus it is unacceptable that we can only attract 20 000 members. This must change. The traditional methods of growing our sport have clearly failed us. We now need a special focus on this new market – and that is the Black, Coloured and Indian market. This will be our focus area for growing our sport.
It is clear that Cycling South Africa needs a new approach to the way it operates. To this end we have captured key strategic actions which will be driven by ExCo and ManCo as summarised below:
The future of our sport depends on how we emerge from this very uncomfortable and challenging situation, but with a committed Executive and Management Committee we are confident that we can remedy the situation. During these trying times we will continue to provide support to our riders to the best of our ability.
We are acutely aware of the negative sentiments towards Cycling SA, but I can assure you that everyone of us are involved in our sport for one reason only – improving the sport of cycling in South Africa and to provide the best support possible to our most important stakeholders – our riders.
I invite you to be part of the solution.
Yours sincerely
William Newman
President
To download the full letter, click here.
