16 Dec 2015

The Francistown branch of the Sports Volunteer Movement (SVM) is content with the role it played during the just-ended Botswana Games

Moses Poloko, a volunteer coordinator, said in an interview that  there had not been any major hiccups in their handling of the various activities that they were tasked with.

He noted that they had managed to avail the 600 volunteers that the gorganisers had requested for.

He attributed their smooth handling of their role to the intense training that they had subjected their members to, especially the new ones.

Furthermore, he pointed out that to ensure that the volunteers received training that was relevant to what they would be doing; some were trained by the Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) on the requirements of the thematic areas under which they were going to serve.

On why some volunteers appeared to be idling, especially starting from Wednesday, which was the second day of the athletics events, Poloko explained that some sports codes such as karate had started at the beginning of the week and had by mid-week wrapped up their schedule.

Hence some volunteers not being redeployed elsewhere and were free to go to other venues to watch the games. On allegations that some volunteers had absconded from work to help at the games, Poloko said there was an incident in which supervisors of one of the SVM members could not get hold of their employee and had to ask the coordinators to help locate the officer in question.

He explained that although they too had difficulty locating the particular member, they eventually found her at a place she was not supposed to have been at; a situation that he stated forced them to relieve the said member of her responsibilities of helping at the games. One of the technical officers for athletics, Patrick Moesi, commended SVM.

He said though for the majority of the volunteers, helping out during the games was a first-time experience, they had fallen into step easily and were also exhibiting a great eagerness to learn.

Moesi said though athletics had been allocated 45 volunteers, they could not complain as they understood that the 600 volunteers had to be shared among several sports codes. Ends