Eight sports officers complete basics in sport administration |28 September 2019

The delegates proudly show off their certificates

Representatives of sport federations and other sporting bodies who took part in a week’s introduction to sport administration training at the Sports Training Centre, Stad Popiler car park, received their certificates yesterday.

The training was organised by the sports training and technical development section of the National Sports Council (NSC) in collaboration with the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga).

The eight delegates who followed the weeks’ sports management course learned about different topics such as governance of a sport organisation, operating environment, basic book keeping, leadership, decision making, conflict management, time management, ethics in sports, violence and harassment in sports, roles and functions of a sports organisation, managing meetings and international sports organisations which will help them to better manage and run their organisations effectively.

The training which was conducted by Bernard Denis, director of the sports training and technical development section, Alain Alcindor from Socga, and freelance consultants Terry Servina, Daniel Seraphine and Guy Morel, took place from September 23-27.

This is the second group of sports volunteers to have followed this training this year.

The delegates received their certificates from the chief executive of NSC Jean Larue and from Messrs Servina, Alcindor and Seraphine.

Addressing the delegates, Mr Larue said that maintaining good governance is one of the weaknesses of local sports federations and associations. He noted that in this day and age in world sports, good governance is key and as managers or administrators, they are responsible and accountable to all matters that arise within the federations or sports clubs.

Mr Laure further said that NSC will continue to impart knowledge and skills to sports volunteers for the promotion of good governance in sports and thanked the eight delegates for embarking on that journey.

Mr Denis, for his part, encouraged the delegates to keep on enhancing their knowledge through other means such as online training, while they await to be enrolled on other courses ran by the sports training and technical development section of the NSC, for the benefit of sports development and for their own benefit.

Mario Pragassen from the Pro Club Youth Academy, who presented the vote of thanks, said after that the knowledge he has acquired will help to ease the running of his academy. He noted that apart from the book keeping session, conflict management and decision making were the topics of great interest to him and will help him take the right decision in matters of the academy.

Valencia Morel, an NSC pool assistant and also a representative of the newly formed Praslin Aquatic Club, said the training will help her to deal with some of the challenges the new club is and will be facing in future.

For his part, St Louis FC manager Devis Khan said that apart from the topics that he knew about but not that in-depth, the training has taught him many things he did not know about. He further said that the knowledge acquired will be of help for not only the football club but for his community life as well.

P. J.