Johannesburg Basketball Association - Chairman's Address for 2024 - Cabby Magongwa
Johannesburg, 22 January 2024 – The Johannesburg Basketball Association (JBA) has kicked off the New Year and called for a Special General Meeting (SGM) to bring the teams, clubs, players, coaches and officials into a forum where the big picture can be shared for the year ahead.
The Chairman’s Address covers some of the highlights of the past few months under his leadership, and takes a look forward to what we are planning to establish and develop in 2024.
The Chairman’s Address for 2024
22 Jan 2024
Exco SGM Address: JBA President 2024 Council address
To: Johannesburg Basketball Association Executive Committee (JBA Exco)
• President – Cabby Magongwa
• Outgoing Vice President – Marieh-Sarah Khoza
• Secretary General – Kgaugelo Phiri
• Treasury – Gareth Jasson
• Coaching and Development – Alex Christians
• Marketing & Communication – William Price
• Technical Director – Hale Bookholane
To be shared with all basketball stakeholders including but not limited to:
• JBA Council Representatives
• Government Sports Organizations (Joburg, Gauteng and national)
• BasketballSA
• Businesses with special interests in basketball
• Local clubs, players and fans
• Social and traditional media
• Current and potential partners
Good evening to everyone who have taken the time out of their busy schedule to be a part of this Special JBA General Meeting which comprises of representatives of clubs registered with our association. If you are new to the association, perhaps it would be good to give you an idea of how the association works and why these meetings are important for good governance around how the association is managed.
As a starting point, it is important that each one of you understand why you are part of the council in order for you to participate meaningfully towards vision and conduct of the association. A good place to start is to familiarize yourself with the signed constitution of the JBA which was to be updated to align as best as possible to the Basketball South Africa (our national federation) constitution. These constitutions are important as they govern all things basketball in the country from a club member to the federation president. In short, this is how it cascades to the top:
A player of any age, race, gender, culture, etc will belong to a
• Club – the constitution has a clear definition of what a legitimate club should be comprised of, which is:
• Club must be based in Johannesburg Metropolitan as per the demarcation by the constitution of the country
• The club’s headquarters’ address to be used as proof of where the club is based
• A club shall be properly constituted, and such Constitution shall be lodged with JBA. The said Constitution will clearly indicate, inter alia:
• the headquarters of the Club concerned;
• composition, powers and functions of the management structures of the club i.e. Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary General etc;
• JBA will not recognise a club as such, until and unless the applicant club can provide written proof of membership of a minimum of 8 (eight) members; this may be reviewed as the national federation constitution requires that a club to have a men, women and at least one junior team.
• A club may levy affiliation and registration fees;
• Now in a fully functional structure, a club would become a member of
• a regional structure i.e. Region A, B, C, D, E, F, G (https://joburg.org.za/about_/regions/Pages/City-of-Johannesburg-regions.aspx) who in turn would have representative
• in the district structure i.e. JBA (Tshwane, Sedibeng, Ekurhuleni, Westrand basketball Associations) who would then have representatives
• at Provincial/Gauteng (GBA) level who ultimately would represent the province
• at a National level and form part of the national General Council where a national Executive Committee is elected every 4 years to lead basketball strategies into the future. The last national exco elections where in Nov 2021 so technically, the next elections should be in 2025
• In the absence of regional structures, it has been accepted over the years that the JBA be constituted of clubs from all regions, something we plan to improve on as we plan to be compliant with the structural requirements over the next few years. Thus, in this current format, a legitimate and fully recognised club will then become a member of JBA
• As a member of the JBA, a club will provide at least 2 representatives that will represent the entire club in the general council meetings where JBA matters are discussed and agreed to. If needs be, critical issues are brought down to votes by the members
• The council members have the responsibility to vote the Executive Committee made up of
• President/Chairman
• Vice/Deputy Chairman (VP)
• Secretary General (SG)
• Treasurer
• Marketing Officer
• Coaching and Development Officer
• Technical Officer
The reason why I believe it is important that I share the information above is because I do not believe everyone in basketball has taken the opportunity to read through the constitution and therefore are oblivious to how things work. It is always good to work from the same page so that as and when Exco presents plans to the general council, everyone should as best as they can, ensure that they have done their part towards helping us achieve the very important requirement for us to get access to any sort of assistance from the government, lotto or any organisation that would need to recognise us as the non-profit organisation we are. We also receive requests from government and/or national federation to provide certain information from our association without which, would make it very difficult for us to function. This background hopes to give you an insight of the difficulty we face when clubs do not respond or participate timely as and when we requested to do so.
I truly hope that this was insightful for those new to how JBA is governed and a great refresher to those familiar with it. It is with this background that as Exco, we would like to take you through plans we have for 2024 and beyond and this would speak to the following:
• Compliance – Structural & Financial
• We plan to assist clubs the best we can to be compliant
• We plan to rebuild the regional structures where development is key
• We have a qualified Chartered Accountant Mr Gareth Jasson as a treasurer who has worked tirelessly to get our finances in good standing
• We are continuously engaging with government departments to seek for the much needed assistance to help improve our basketball level across the city
• We will continue to work towards all districts in the province to becoming recognised by the Gauteng Sports Council with the hope to get Gauteng Basketball Association back in operation in order to open up participation of our players in national programs
• Affiliation fees will be presented in the finance part of the meeting. This fees are critical as they help us with planning and execution of the plans with have for our association. Players/technical officials that have not paid for their affiliation fees will not be considered in any of the JBA direct or endorsed programs. Exceptions can be made in some development programs.
• Participation
• Exco has resolved that we will endorse and recognise all organisations doing good basketball programs/leagues in Joburg as we have accepted that the growth of basketball can only be through legitimate partnership across the city
• This allows Exco to govern and provide guidelines instead of trying to run programs ourselves with limited human and financial resources
• Programs to focus on are:
• Junior development leagues at regional level
• Senior development leagues at regional and district level
• Elite League at district level
• Technical deployment and development
• We plan to run technical clinics for referees and table officials to help improve their skills on the court, also
• Our coaching and development officer will run clinics for coaches so that rules are seen from the same updated rule book and thereby limiting arguments and frustrations during games
• Referees and coaches will be graded which will help provide the basic foundation for good basketball in the city
• We will require participation by the general council well versed in the rules of the game to be part of Disciplinary and Conflict resolution committee to help resolve in-game issues quickly and amicably led by the Vice Chairperson
• We plan to deploy and manage only registered technical officials in programs we endorse/partner with in order to remove technical staff controversy. This may not be the case in immediate endorsement but certainly in future.
• Marketing and Communication
• We plan to launch a JBA website where all things Joburg basketball will be posted for everyone to see
• This information will include local, provincial, national and international events coming up
• This will also help us consolidate and plan accordingly to avoid as best as possible all clashes in major competitions happening across the board
• We plan to also use the platform market and help grow clubs while collecting the database of all clubs and its members in the city
• With the above information, the association can reach out to organisations for sponsorships in cash or kind which will help improve the all aspects of basketball in general
• We have in principle agreed with Vision View to a value exchange partnership where they will be able to broadcast our games on their platform in return for selected JBA programs/games receiving the much needed exposure, without which our game will only be limited to the few people watching games at the venues. The discussions are to be revisited once the product starts to attract meaningful viewership. Teams that would prefer not to have their games included in this broadcast deal must communicate this to the SG so that they can be considered as we finalise the broadcast schedule.
The above are some but a few of the ideas of how we plan to realise the vision in my first address to you which is to make Joburg basketball the biggest, strongest and most exciting basketball competitions in South Africa. Since the address, we have managed to achieve the following in the short space of time at the helm as Exco:
• Hosted an international FIBA3x3 event at Melrose Arch
• Engaged with other districts and Gauteng Sports Council to try and revive Gauteng Basketball Association
• Communicated to the general council various coaching and technical clinics hosted by BSA
• Hosted the Joburg Basketball Invitational tournament
• Featured an junior teams at the JBI finals
• Broadcast all play off and finals games in partnership with Vision View
• Efficiently and effectively communicated via social media, Whatsapp and other platforms on everything happening in basketball
We believe that this is a great stepping stone towards achieving our goals as Exco and believe it is good grounds to build an even bigger and better programs in 2024.
Each member of our Exco will present their part of their portfolio and you can engage with them in a Q&A session once all of them have presented their plans.
As the chairman, I would like to end up by listing what to expect from us this year as a summary:
• Exco has endorsed ICSL as a league to participate in, in the first half of the year. These include the 3×3 and league as per their dates and rules. This gives us time to focus on capacity building to effect development in the regions and junior programs.
• We are finalizing terms of reference that will be detailed in the tender bid for those interested in running the JBL in the 2nd half of the year. Any organization with proven record or can show its capability to run such a property is allowed to participate in the bidding process.
• We would like teams from various regions to run development leagues in their respective regions as part of our development programs.
• Technical and coaches clinics to be the center of our focus as they are the basis of the quality of our programs
• Tournaments that will be ran by Exco will include the U16 Champions Challenge where champions from last year’s junior programs/leagues/tournaments hosted in Joburg (and some wild cards) compete for the Champion of Champions Title. This is to be hosted middle to end of February in preparation for the National U16 Championship to be hosted in March.
• A JBA website to be launch where all things Joburg basketball will be posted
• Selected games from direct and/or endorsed programs to be broadcasted
I thank you all. Yours in sport.
Cabby Magongwa
JBA Chairman