Victoria Lake Club Water Sport Institute

of “equal opportunity for all” who strives for personal development of the body, mind and spirit. Life Skills programmes are interlaced within these water sports and individuals will derive the most complete experience towards their personal formation and the development of strength of character and a rounded personality. Grooming of the attributes of sportsmanship, teambuilding, loyalty & personal control are central to the self discipline associated with Canoeing, Rowing and Sailing. These are the integral elements which are laced into the very fabric & fibre which leads the individual to the achievement of self understanding and respect for others who become their “team mates”! Rowing is a core member of the international Olympic sporting family and it is the ongoing development of “Team Work” which is central to the common goals of our Olympic Sports! –
Personal and individual coaching is available to each every member of the INSTITUTE. Mutual respect: The INSTITUTE attempts to ensure that every athlete is respected and becomes integrated into the sport systems of their choice. Well trained coaches: ensure that they treat athletes firmly, fairly and justly and impart skill knowledge which hones athletic skills, self-discipline and a spirit of fair play. Tradition: all water sports athletes transmit time honoured values, ethical standards & shared experiences to the younger athletes.. Environmental: Water Sports athletes respect and safeguard the water and its surroundings. The INSTITUTE management will constantly appraise each athlete’s performance through the “Talent identification programme”
Selected individuals will be fast tracked through the INSTITUTES HIGH PERFORMANCE programmes. Member’s selected for these programmes will given every opportunity of progressing towards selection the sport specific National Team.. We promote the INSTITUTE and the three sporting codes we run through personal contact to the Head Masters / or Head Mistresses of educational intuitions; which include Primary and High schools in Germiston District. Once we’ve contacted a school we arrange a date and time to deliver a short presentation explaining each of the three sports codes. The INSTITUTE offers all interested institutions open and free access to the sports equipment owed by the INSTITUTE and its associates
By way of this offer - Educational Institutions avoid the set up costs associated with launching a new sporting discipline. This extension ensures ease of passage to an otherwise expensive sporting venture. There are no hidden costs or expectations attached to attracting educational institutions - school children to participate in one or more of the INSTITUTES sports offerings! The children that accept our invitation to an “open day ‘at the INSTITUTES head quarters at the Victoria Lake Club. Prospective members may be collected from their respective schools or if they are close to the Victoria Lake in Germiston, they will proceed to the VLC by walking to the facilities and then proceed home either walking or by using public transport! The children are enrolled into the sporting programme of their choice on a month to month basis and falling in line with the national school term system,. Scholars are asked to pay a small fee toward their training and for transport where and when this is available. Scholars who require financial aid can apply for assistance from the INSTITUTE. When competing the children do so by representing the INSTITUTE after having been trained and guided over many months. Challenges facing the WATERSPORTS INSTITUTE in running the schools programmes. Contacting the schools/ Institutions: There are many schools that are able to accept the INSITUTES invitation to become associated with its sports programmes. and a full time administrator is required to promote the programmes. Transporting the children: currently the coaches are collecting the children that are not able to make their way to the Centre. This is time consuming and inefficient with the vehicle we have, thus restricting the numbers of children enrolled in the programme
Facilities: We need to replace the antiquated Rowing boat house facilities at the Victoria Lake Club,
We too need to ensure that our facilities are compatible with the needs of physically challenged athletes. We require a building to house our INSTITUTES High Performance Centre. o This centre will incorporate athlete dormitories and study areas; Indoor training facilities and the transfer of the gymnasium that is currently located at Germiston High School. o The INSTITUTES High Performance Centre should also incorporate specialist facilities for Coaches, a Psychologist / Physiotherapist / Kinetics specialist and athlete debriefing. o The centre should also house office facilities for the Director of Sport at VLC, the present INSTITUTE director Rev. Keith Maybery operates from his home. Water Allocation: Currently the Victoria Lake club shares its water rights with GAC.(Germiston Aquatic Club) The totally time is shared equally between the two. Currently VLC has over 850 members using the water on a weekly basis. And our 50 % is shared between the 3 sporting codes as there are a number of safety issues that come to the fore when there are so many athletes on the water. GAC be totally dedicated to them with no other athletes allowed on the water. As a result this restricts our competition times to half the number of weekends in the year and it is then again split in to the 3 codes so in reality each code can only hold 8 competitions a year including national regional and local with not much left for club competitions. It is imperative to the development programmes that the WATERSPORTS INSTITUTE can have as much water time as possible for training and competition. Our High performance athletes are already moving elsewhere to get sufficient training time so that their training times are inline with the rest of the worlds programmes. Not to mention the fact that the possibility of having a fatal accident on the lake is a very real one with the way the time allocation is currently being managed. requires that their allocation

How we finance the programmes? Our Rowing programme needs to become more self-sufficient. o Our rowing equipment is in part “ancient” or fleet and equipment tends to be hand downs from rowing clubs which enables us to carry out the formative stages for the development of technique and water skills. o We extremely short of funds to remunerate our own coaching staff! o We urgently need financial assistance to be able to purchase modern and equipment, so that we can become more competitive>
o We have been very well supported by the Germiston High School, whose generosity via the loan of equipment and the sharing of its coaching staff. o Our water sports programmes are receiving the backing of their National Federations; RowSA and SA Sailing respectively. Funding has also been received via grants in aid from the Department of Sports & Recreation. We are dedicated to the process of making our water sports accessible to the widest possible audience. We aim to increase the number of competitive athletes in the Germiston / Katlehong areas! We need to attract many more prospective competitive athletes and we hope too to attract the attention‘of our National sports bodies, as well as the likes of the National Lottery Board and other business houses to become willing supporters and partners in the growth and development of our goals for the “High Performance facilities.” which we have in mind! We do need financial assistance in grow our facility base. We do rely on donations and aid from benefactors, our members and corporates. But as with all NPO’s much time is spent fund raising instead of coaching. tThe VICTORIA LAKE CLUB WATER SPORT INSTITUTE (herein after referred to as the INSTITUTE) strives to inspire the core values and traditions associated with the Olympic water sports which are practiced and performed by athletes who are members of the VICTORIA LAKE CLUB – specifically the sports of Canoeing, Rowing and Sailing.