Saturday, November 2, 2024

BNOC spearheading their strategic plan

In their efforts to develop sports in the country, the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) board is pursuing their Strategic Plan 2008-16 with vigour.

Their main thrust being the re-engineering at the secretariat and creating synergies with other stakeholders.

Vice president at BNOC, Botsang Tshenyego, told the Sunday Standard that in the last couple of months, the BNOC had embarked on recruitment of personnel for its secretariat to ensure the pool of manpower at the secretariat.

“The BNOC appreciates human resources which is the most important asset of any organization,” he said. He stated that they are continuously sharing its vision with affiliates and thereby ensuring a good foundation is laid to give their strategy better chances of success. BNOC has, over a few months, been sharing its vision with affiliates and thereby ensuring a good foundation is laid to give our strategy better chances of success.”

Tshenyego further said it is their hope that the new Sports Act under consideration will eliminate all unnecessary duplication and overlaps in roles among all stakeholders. In addition, he asserted that they will be introducing coaching and mentoring systems for their staff in the near future to ensure they are fully empowered to deliver on their mandate successfully, noting that they have flagship projects which will see them go a long way in talent identification and long term athlete development.

“Our flagship project this year is the on-going one on talent identification & long term athlete development. It is long overdue and affiliates are optimistic it will add value to their efforts at the various stages of the national sports value chain,” added Tshenyego. He further said the outcome of the project will inform them as well as fine tune their talent identification processes for elite athletes.

He went on to say the next project, which is likely to commence this year is the building of the BNOC headquarters in Block 6.

“Once the facility is complete, it will have additional office space to rent and therefore provide a stream revenue to fund programs,” Tshenyego said. Furthermore, BNOC will in April this year embark on a project called ZEUS, an online event and data management program designed in New Zealand.

Tshenyego explained that this project has been adopted by many countries, including Canada, and that the Canadian Commonwealth Office is the main sponsor.

The office will sponsor interns to come assist BNOC with the training and setting up of the system. ZEUS also captures most athletes’ bio-data except medical profile and helps track athletes and performance.

“Come April 2010, BNOC will be embarking on a project known as ZEUS, which will be led by a Canadian intern sponsored in partnership with us and the Canadian Commonwealth Games Office. The intern will be understudied and will stay for a period of one year.

This is an online events and games management capable of managing athletes’ profiles as well,” he said.

He further said they have also identified an understudy for the intern. Tshenyego added that some of their programs will be delegated to commissions.

“We are optimistic that the commissions will assist us in their areas of expertise. The education culture commission is already working on hosting the Queen’s Baton Relay. The Sports Science and Medicine Commission is likely to be working on hosting a Sports Science Symposium in 2010,” he said.

He stated that all of these projects, will, of course, be running concurrently with programs preparing Batswana athletes for competition at the next Commonwealth Games and the Olympics.

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