This year, the international sports calendar saw June 13th marked as World Softball Day.
The Botswana Softball Association (BSA) didn’t fail to take heed of the day’s celebration. For local softball the day was used for multi tasks that would benefit the sport.
Last week, on the same day, the BSA held a fundraising dinner in a bid to generate funds for the men’s senior national team that is expected to attend the International Softball Federation competitions that are to be held in Saskatoon, Canada.
The competitions are supposed to kick off on the 17-26th of July this year.
The dinner, which was held at the GICC, was also a way of campaigning for the worldwide-bred initiative that is Back softball. According to Marumo Morule, who is currently the president of the BSA, Back Softball is a campaign for softball to be brought back into the 2016 international Olympic committee programme.
“We are saying that, as part of the softball community, we want to be reinstated into the programme because as it is, we are not even part of the 2012 committee,” said Marumo.
Marumo said that the association had earlier on in the day launched their first ever youth development programme, adding that they saw the events that occurred on the day of celebration as an opportunity to bring the softball community together outside the field.
“It was also for us to interact with the public whom we are also asking to fund us to represent them in Canada,” he said. “I would say our efforts were not in vain as we had positive feedback.”
Morule said that former softball presidents and members were also able to brace the event, with the exception of one or two individuals who failed to make it.
“The evening had a number of pleasant surprises’ as we were even able to hand down recognition awards to some of our loyal and talented players in terms of their dedication to the sport,” said Morule.
