Brief report on the 2011 achievements of The Gambia Volleyball Association (GVBA)

During the year under review, series of activities and programmes were undertaken by the association.

Among them was the Coaches perfections training, organised in collaboration with the Development Centre of Senegal to enhance the capacity of Gambian local Coaches.

The training has benefited us and now most of our coaches are embarking on grassroots development in the greater Banjul Area and in some schools.

Similarly, The Gambia Volleyball Association organised a club championship league and knockout in October, 2010 with 6 male and 4 female teams. The finals were hosted in Banjul on February 2011, which was remarkable.

One of our National Referees attended the FIVB Candidate course in Nigeria and was eventually nominated among referees for Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB), an enormous achievement for volleyball in The Gambia.

It is great to report that this is the first time volleyball has reached the top level of competitions in the Beach volleyball category.

The Gambia made it to the first and second pools, qualifies up to the 3rd pool, where Gambia was eliminated although reached the semifinals.

The Gambia happens to represent Zone 2 in the all-African games in Maputo, Mozambique, due to our qualification to the African Continental Cup and the London Olympic 2012 qualifiers.

A training seminar was also organised to capacitise our National Referees through the development strategy planning of the CAVB, which qualifies them automatically as candidate referees for Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) till 2014.

In 2011, also there were some international engagements attended by the President of the Association such as the honorary decoration of His Excellency Bless Compoare, the President of the Republic of Burkina Faso, to which GVBA President was an invitee during the ceremony representing Zone II as the Secretary General, by the Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) and Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) Presidents.

A Zone II meeting was also held in Guinea Conakry for the setting up of the newly  Zone II  Bureau  to take charge of the affairs in the Union of Zone II volleyball activities in which The Gambia retains the Secretary General position.

All these successes achieved in the year 2011 by the Gambia Volleyball Association was through the support of Gambia National Olympic Committee (GNOC) and partly the National Sports Council (NSC). We want to thank all of them for their immense contribution towards sports development.

The Gambia Volleyball Association (GVBA) delegated the President to attend the Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) ordinary Congress in Khartoum, Sudan, December 2011.

The Gambia Volleyball Association (GVBA) was able to secure a waiver for its annual contributions for 2009 to 2011 amounting to 900CHF Swiss (D31, 500.00 GMD) owed to the Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) and Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) respectively.

Meanwhile, with continues commitment and collaboration we hope that the year 2012 will equally register more developments and achievements for GVBA.

SETBACKS

Capacity building: Infrastructure exclusively for volleyball, an office space for smooth and perfect administration

Mobility: This is needed to facilitate free movement of our technical department officials to reach the provinces

Funds: There is need for funds to promote volleyball development.