Olympic Solidarity – Seychelles Women and Sports Association |29 October 2022

The delegates and organisers in a souvenir photo

Female sports office bearers learn more on modern administration ethics

Being an office bearer for a sporting association or federation, it is crucial to be up to date with the current trend and ethics in managing and administrating an office, equipped with vital skills necessary to ensure that the office and the respective sport discipline are run smoothly.

To ensure effectiveness in the local sporting administrative system, the Seychelles Women and Sports Association (Swasa) in collaboration with the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga), through the Olympic Solidarity programme recently hosted a training session for female office bearers from various local sporting federations and associations, equipping them with skills to ensure that the offices are run as they are supposed to in order for them to function accordingly.

The training held at the Olympic House at Roche Caïman was facilitated by consultant Stephanie Duval and covered three main areas, including correspondence, managing meetings and identification of committees’ personalities.

In correspondence, the participants firstly learned on phone etiquette where as administrators, their key role is to answer the phone in a professional manner, even if they are having a bad day, and also to get back to missed calls, replying texts and WhatsApp messages, all within a maximum period of 48 hours.

This was followed by email etiquettes where they learned on principles that guide behaviours when sending and receiving emails, including guidelines regarding appropriate language, spelling, grammar, and manners, depending on who they are emailing.

They were also advised to copy every executive member in responses, while also replying promptly within 48 hours.

Proper letter writing was another area covered under correspondence where the participants learned on formal letter format which is professional and written in formal language, in a prescribed format and used for professional communication.

In the second component of the training which was managing meetings, the administrators learned on the importance of having meetings, guides for good meetings, and also the importance of properly taking minutes in each meeting.

They also learned to ensure that there is a specific reason for every meeting planned, while questioning every item on the agenda before calling, assessing whether the items can be dealt with just as well without a meeting.

Limiting attendance to avoid more discussion and longer meetings regarding a chosen topic was also discussed, along with the importance of a well-taken minutes meeting.

Lastly, the participants learned how to identify each committee member and how to assign each one of them responsibilities, based on their respective skills and personal qualities.

According to Miss Duval, most of the participants were acquainted to the ethics, but needed a refresher training to update themselves and be abreast with the newest development and trends within the field.

She further noted that there are still a lot of work to be done within several local federations and associations in regard to matter of professionalism and office ethics.

It is to note that Swasa was set up in 1999 as a women and sports committee by former Sports Minister Sylvette Pool, before setting up a sports day for women on the International Women's Day on March 8, 1999, and hosting a seminar in May 1999.

The seminar was aimed at identifying problems affecting Seychellois women in sports, and proposing solutions for them.

Following the seminar Swasa set up an Action Plan for 2000-2004, outlining its mission to ensure that girls and women have access to a complete range of opportunities and choices, while having equity as participants and leaders in sports and physical activities.

In March 2013, Swasa was successfully re-activated during a meeting held at Socga headquarters at Roche Caïman.

The association is presently being chaired by Delta Ward-Horner.

Roland Duval