Chair report
The year 2008 has come and gone with its economic downturn challenges as well as interesting and exciting development within the BWA. We finally managed to address both the issue of diversity and young women involvement in our organization. Despite the economic challenges we maintained a good membership database and have enjoyed a good participation of both our members and non-members at our events.
Our corporate membership continues to grow with ELIDZ and IDC coming on board during the year under review.
Membership
To date our Membership is sitting at 168 members, including memberships that are up for renewal. Our strategy is to sign up at least 8 members a month to reach our target of 210 members by November 2009. We have 3 corporates as members namely: J&J, IDC and ELIDZ. We are in the process of securing a corporate membership with a couple of local businesses.
2008 Events
VALENTINES MASKED BALL - 15 FEBRUARY 2008
This event was attended by 10 members and 44 non members. This event was coordinated by our Vice-Chair, Lizelle Maurice. It went very well and it was the first of its kind. It was then agreed that it be an annual event.
BREAKFAST WORKSHOP – 19 MARCH 2008
This event was attended by 6 members and 6 non Members. It was the first Workshop for the year and the guest speaker was our 2007 Corporate RBAA Winner, Lorraine Govender. Although the attendance was very low the ladies enjoyed the morning and got to speak to our winner directly so they all had a wonderful time.
NETWORKING FUNCTION - 03 APRIL 2008
Five new members were inducted at this event. The event was attended by 15 members and 9 non members. We also managed to sign up 2 new members on the evening. This event had no cover charge therefore there was no profit expected. However, from this experience, we have decided to link our induction evening to one of our planned events to cover costs and make it more exciting to the new members.
GOLF DAY – 10 APRIL 2008
This event was organized by DI STAP COMMUNICATIONS a well respected events management company owned by one of our members Di Stap. This event was attended by 47 players. This was very good networking opportunity for many of the players. The function was attended by both men and women and it was a very successful day. The event was mainly sponsored by Billion Group, who committed to future BWA events. We are confident that 2009's event will be even bigger and better as we already have 6 teams signed up and a potential sponsor commitment for our Golf Day on Wednesday, 23 April 2009.
WINE TASTING NETWORKING FUNCTION – 08 MAY 2008
This function was attended by 9 members and 10 none Members and was held at Sublime Living, a coffee shop in an art gallery. We have come up with a new concept for our networking functions to give our members and local businesses the chance to advertise their businesses by sponsoring a networking event at their venue. This worked out very well as the ladies got to relax and enjoyed the evening even more.
BREAKFAST WORKSHOP – 15 MAY 2008
This function was attended by 14 members and 5 non members. Our Guest speaker, Mr G Sharpley, the former Buffalo City Municipal Manager, gave us an inspirational talk.
BREAKFAST WORKSHOP - 28 MAY 2008
This function was attended by 9 members and 31 non members. The event was fully sponsored by Deloitte & Touché. Due to the professional manner in which this partnership was managed by our capable coordinator, Deloitte & Touché welcomed the idea to co-host future events with BWA. Our interaction with this company has helped us build our database, especially with the public entities.
NETWORKING FUNCTION – 05 JUNE 2008
This function was attended by 4 members and 10 non members. This event was sponsored by a property investment company called Bluezone. The response to this was very great as the topic on property investment at this point is a very topical issue. As these networking events are free to members and are met to promote member interaction, as well as serve a platform for recruitment; we expect each member to at least invite a non-member friend to these functions and promote our organization.
RBAA GALA DINNER – 26 JULY 2008
This event was the highlight of 2008 events with 170 guests in attendance. Both our President Basetsana Kumalo and the then CEO graced this occasion. Many corporate companies booked tables. Our winners received good prizes, thanks to the generosity of our members and the local business community. We enjoyed great media coverage for this event. We are well on our way with preparations for our 2009 RBAA, it’s going to be a blast and we encourage everyone to forward their nominations before the closing date of 31st March 2009.
CENSUS WORKSHOP, BREAKFAST WITH RBAA WINNERS AND NEW MEMBERS INDUCTION – 26 JULY 2008
This event was attended by 37 guests and we had the CEO of BWA, Yvette Montalbano as our guest speaker, presenting the 2008 census report. It was the first interaction of our RBAA winners with the members after the RBBA event. They each gave a brief presentation on their experience in business and everybody was very pleased to meet them. A total of 10 members were inducted at this event and they were very pleased to be part of this very important event.
SPRING DAY EXTRAVAGANZA – 09 SEPTEMBER 2008
This event was attended by 6 members and 14 non members. This event was held at East London Harbour and the all the ladies had a great time in the sun enjoying the spring air. It was great fun with ladies pulling out all the stops to dress according to the theme. The Best Hat award: a wrist watch sponsored by Galaxy Jewelers Retail Park went to Wendy de Bruyn & Roma Bam received a nice Busby bag from Seager`s Luggage. Edgar’s Store, Beacon Bay gave a presentation on professional make-up application and how one can lighten up for spring through correct make-up application. A dietician from Nestle gave a presentation on healthy eating habits and gave everyone diet packs to take home.
CORPORATE WOMAN LEADERS SUMMIT SPONSORED BY ECDC– 18 SEPTEMBER 2008
This event was attended by 37 guests and the feedback from this was absolutely great. Amongst the speakers was our BWOYA winner Mardia Vander Wolt Korsten whose topic was leadership with a soul. The venue was sponsored by ECDC. This is one of the events that most corporate organizations are interested to support in the year 2009 and they commend the BWA for this initiate as they believe it is aligned to their strategic goals around Equity Employment and women empowerment; especially they own employees.
We hope to extend invitation beyond our region and develop this program to a point of our BWA being self-sustaining
BUSINESS EMPOWERMENT OPPORTUNITIES PRESENTED BY IDC – 30 OCTOBER 2008
This event was attended by 45 guests of whom 4 were males and the rest females. This event was a huge success as the topic of discussion was of very great importance. We have so many up and coming businesswomen who are in need of funding, mentoring and business management skills and this is what this workshop was about. This event was fully sponsored by the IDC .We are looking forward to similar joint event with the IDC for the year 2009.
MONTHLY NETWORKING FUNCTION PRESENTED BY EDGARS - 6 NOVEMBER 2008
This was a great way to end the year as this was our last networking function for 2008. We had the ladies from our Edgar’s Beacon Bay branch come and educate us on how to apply make up and the do’s and don’ts when using color on our faces. The ladies all got great gifts from Edgar’s and everyone had a marvelous time.
BWOYA ROADSHOW SPONSORED BY OLD MUTUAL – 17 NOVEMBER 2008
This event was sponsored by our local Old Mutual branch and we have approached them to sponsor this event in 2009 we had 30 guests at this event. This event was a success and all the ladies enjoyed chatting one on one to our winners. The messages the ladies gave us was very inspirational and the event went off well. Mr Mvenge the Manager of Old Mutual was the only gentleman at the event but he too enjoyed himself with the ladies.
BWA END OF YEAR CHARITY BALL – 29 NOVEMBER 2008
This year we teamed up with our 2008 Social Entrepreneur Winner Melonie Gobel from Living Waters. Christmas gifts were collected and donations to Living Water at a Christmas Party held at the premises on the 5th December 2008. J & J came on board with toiletries for the kids. One of our members, Michelle Coetzee from Siyaphambili Staffing Solutions sponsored some gifts for the children and her and her team assisted with the set-up at the venue. Zane from Stirling Conferencing & Events sponsored all the snack platters and refreshments and Healthcor sponsored party packs for all the children. We are grateful to have such committed members on our team.
Committee
We started the year with a committee of 10 members. Out of the 10-member committee, 2 are willing to stand for 2009. For the year 2009 we are targeting a 12 member committee in order to share the workload of a growing organization. The nominations started in November 2008 and 8 phenomenal businesswomen accepted the nomination to serve on our 2009 committee and we are still in search of 2 ladies to join our team. I would like to thank the outgoing committee members for their teamwork and commitment to the BWA.
We have observed that due to the caliber of people we target to serve on our committee; we need to be creative in the manner we engage these committee members in order to focus their effort in the areas complimentary to their expertise. For example, committee members from corporate would be more suited to deal with business development and empowerment workshops and Corporate Women Leaders’ Summit.
The recruitment/nomination process has been guided by the above principle, so as to ensure that committee meetings are kept to the minimum, in more focused manner with a specific goals/deliverables in mind.
Nominees for 2009 are:
1. Nandipha Vena : From IDC
2. Di Stap: From Di Stap Communications
3. Poonam Harry: From Harry’s Printer
4. Michelle Coetzee: From Siyaphambili Staffing Solutions
5. Zimasa Daniels : From ECDC
6. Ntsiki Njamela : From Terra Consulting
7. Linda Promnitz: From ABSA Bank
8. Lungi Moko : From Ntinga Construction
9. Wendy be Bruyn: From Healthcor
10. Adv Naledi Bisiwe: An Independent Consultant
Resignations for 2008:
Due to work commitments we had 2 resignations namely: Susan Keighley and Loren Smith.
Members nominated for 2009 were encouraged to identify a specify project to champion in the year 2009 and being actively involved in shaping BWA for better.
NEDBANK CHAMPION: We are please that Pat McCarlie continues to be our Nedbank Champion and she will participate on all Nedbank owned and /or programs namely the RBAA, BWA-Nedbank Census and any future partnership programs with Nedbank. Over the year Pat has been and continues to be a valuable member of our committee and I wish to thank her personally for her support.
Main Events 2009
23 April 2009 – Golf Day
21 May 2009 – Business Workshop
27 June 2009 – RBAA Gala Dinner
9 August 2009 – Women’s Day Cinderella Ball
30 August 2009 – Corporate Women Leaders Summit
4 September 2009 – Secretary & Spring Day Lunch
25 September 2009 – Spring day Fashion Show
29 & 30 October 2009 – BWOYA road Show
14 November 2009 – End of year function
Sponsorship / Strategic Partnerships
In 2008 we partnered with Deloitte, IDC, Old Mutual and Billion Group. This year we have aligned our program to the national strategic plan and packaged our activities in a manner that allowed potential partners/sponsors to identify areas of interest and commit to a specific program for the year. We hope this will strengthen our relationships with existing and potential partners as we will able to commit to specific deliverables upfront and work together towards their achievement
Finace
Despite the economic downturn we have managed to close the year with minimal deficit relating to the changes to our original budget. Coordinators’ Salary was budget at R 5000.00 per month and had to be increased to R 7000.00 as it was difficult to secure good candidate at the budgeted rate. Therefore our deficit should have been R 27000.00 but we closed with -R 10990.00 and made a saving of approximately R17000.00. It is worth mentioning that Nedbank fund only 4th salary for the coordinator, the rest has to be funded by the branch.
Our projections for the 2009 are promising to put us back on a sound financial position with 3 of our main events already planned with the commitment of strategic partners coming on board.
In Summary
We have achieved our goals for the year under review:
- Growing the BWA beyond the East London Region and hence the changed of name endorsed by the Head Office to be Border-Kei Region
- Forging Strategic Alliances with local business to deliver value to our members
- Promoting diversity within the BWA
- Attracting Young Women as BWA members
- Giving special attention to our corporate members through our program offering
Once more I wish to thank the committee members of 2008 and all of our members who made a special effort to attend our events as well as recruit new members. A special thank you message to our special coordinator Bianca who in spite of her being highly expectant during the highly demanding period of our organization managed to pull through two major events the RBAA 2008 & Corporate Women Leaders’ Summit; with the support of a vibrant student from the university of Fort Hare, Ziyanda Fatsha. I wish we all would appreciate the value the BWA Coordinators bring to this organization and support them whichever way we can.
I invite you all to roll up your sleeves, put your shoulders on the wheel and get this wagon running for the benefit of us all.
YOURS IN TRANSFORMATION
Bea Hackula