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09 May 2018 Photo Varsity Sports
Maryke Coetzee is the new captain of the Crinums netball team
Maryke Coetzee is the new captain of the Crinums netball team.

Despite being a very young team the Free State Crinums are packed with Kovsie players, who will start the Brutal Fruit Netball Premier League as one of the strongest contenders and will hopefully be crowned the country’s best netball province.

The five-week long competition starts on Friday (11 May) in Johannesburg. The Crinums is a de facto Kovsie team with all 15 squad members currently doing a course at the university. Eleven of them were in action for the Kovsies in the Varsity Netball competition in 2017. They have only lost four players from last year which, along with the defending champs, the Jaguars, is the fewest by any team. They also boast experience in every position. The four newcomers in the squad are Sikholiwe Mdletshe, Jana Scholtz, Rykie Venter and Marétha van Heerden. Mdletshe and Venter have played for the Kovsies before. 

After winning the trophy for three years in a row, the Crinums were unable to defend it in 2017 when they finished fifth. It was, however, with a team that was officially the youngest, with an average age of 21 years and five months. This year it has increased to 21 years and six months. 

The team is coached by Kovsie netball coach, Burta de Kock, and skippered by goalkeeper Maryke Coetzee. She and Tanya Mostert (goal defender) will participate in their fifth Premier league.

The Crinums start with two matches against teams they haven’t lost to before. On Friday night they tackle the Sunbirds from Mpumalanga and a day later the Baobabs from Limpopo.

The Crinums squad: Alicia Puren, Ané Retief, Gertriana Retief, Jana Scholtz, Khanyisa Chawane, Khomotso Mamburu, Lefébre Rademan, Luscha Pienaar, Marétha van Heerden, Marna Claassens, Maryke Coetzee, Meagan Roux, Rykie Venter, Sikholiwe Mdletshe, Tanya Mostert.

News Archive

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative
2006-05-10

At the conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue were from the left Dr Aldo Stroebel (senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate), Dr Edith Vries (acting Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Development Trust) and Prof Frans Swanepoel (Director: UFS Research Development Directorate).

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

Two staff members of the University of the Free State (UFS) have been appointed as members of the advisory board of the national programme for the creation of small enterprises and jobs in the second economy.  This programme forms part of government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGI-SA).

Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of the UFS Research Development Directorate and Dr Aldo Stroebel, senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate, are working with a team of experts from the UFS on a draft implementation strategy for the national programme.  Both Prof Swanepoel and Dr Stroebel are also associated to the UFS Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.
 
“The strategy is being developed in collaboration with institutions like the Independent Development Trust, the Department of Agriculture, the National Development Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry,” says Prof  Swanepoel.  

The other team members of the UFS are Prof Basie Wessels, Director of the  Mangaung-University Community Partnership Programme (MUCPP) and Mr  Benedict Mokoena, project manager at the MUCPP.

Dr Stroebel was also member of the organising committee of a conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue that was recently presented in Johannesburg.  The conference was attended by more than 400 delegates from government departments, higher-education institutions and civil society, including Dr Kobus Laubscher, member of the UFS Council.

The conference was facilitated by Ms Vuyo Mahlati, previously from the WK Kellogg Foundation’s Africa programme and opened by Ms Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs.   

“The colloquium formed the basis of an induction workshop during which a group of 150 individuals (50 teams of three) from all nine provinces, identified to initiate the implementation of the national programme, was trained and orientated towards an induction manual in collaboration with Hand-in-Hand, an Indian counterpart,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Dr Stroebel and Mr Benedict Mokoena formed part of the team to conceptualise and finalise this training manual.  The induction training includes a case study of a successful community self-help partnership model, namely the MUCPP at the UFS. Prof Wessels and Mr Mokoena are both playing a leading role in the further development of subsequent training initiatives throughout South Africa, in partnership with the relevant provincial departments.

“The involvement of the UFS in the programme is a compliment to us.  It reflects the value government sees in the use of academics and experts in the management of the ASGI-SA initiative.  It is also an indication of one of the aims of the UFS to play a role in South Africa and Africa and in the transformation and change that is taking place in our country,” says Prof Swanepoel.  

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
10 May 2006

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