To all my fellow BAK Members,
As many of you have read in my feedback in the July
newsletter, I mentioned that some exciting news was coming about the future of
our club, and I would like to use the opportunity to inform everybody about
what is happening.
As you all know Bellville Athletic Club consists of
two divisions, namely us (the Road Running division), as well as the track and
field division. Even though we are one club with one constitution we have
always operated as two entirely separate clubs, each with its own committee. For
a few years there have been discussions between us and the track division to
split, but because of the years of history and traditions of the club, it was
decided to stay as one club. Recently we had to update our constitution which
was very outdated and while we were working on a new constitution to comply
with the new requirements from ASA, we realized that remaining as one club was just
not practical any longer. After serious deliberation, we as the Road Running
division decided to break away from
the track division and form our very own new club.
The committee has not taken this decision lightly,
but we do believe that this is the best decision for our club and that the time
to do it is now. We want to affect the change with as little disruption as
possible to our members, so what will change?
Firstly we will need a new club constitution. As a
committee we have been working on this for some time now and we are happy that
we have a new, up-to-date, and modern constitution.
Next, we must decide on a
name for the new club, but this is where we need you, our members, to get
involved.
To officially adopt the new constitution and to
vote for the new name we will be calling a SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING (SGM) of the
club where we will:
·
present the proposed constitution to all members,
·
vote for the new name and
·
elect an interim committee until the next AGM.
The club colours and logo will not change so
we would not need to buy new running kit and because our running kit has BELLVILLE printed on the front, we want
to keep BELLVILLE in the name of the
new club. As a committee we have a few name options but would like to invite you to send me more suggestions
for a club name. If your suggestion is chosen as the new club name you will
receive free club membership for next year. Please send me your suggestion
to amariano133@gmail.com, but please note that should the number of suggestions be too many, the
committee will choose the best ones and these will be presented to you at the SGM.
The planned date for the meeting is 15
August 2019 and you will receive notice of the meeting within the next
week.
After the SGM we will submit the application for
the new club to WPA and it will be voted on at the AGM of WPA in September. We
do not anticipate any issues with the club being accepted and the plan is to
have everything in place for our members to join the new club in January 2020.
If anybody has any questions you are free to speak
to me directly. You can also contact me on 082 780 1090 or amariano133@gmail.com
We are very excited about the future and cannot
wait for all of you to be a part of the new club.
Kind Regards,
Andre Mariano
Chairman