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Sports

Sports Council loses its top men

By John Winton

With the new council firmly in office the hopes for a strong cen tral organisation are high.

The responsibility of those now in office are indeed high, with the absence of three experienced members who have, as it were, left for greener pastures. Before these three gentlemen faded into oblivion I managed to sound them on the future of sport and sports organisation in this university.

All have served long and well on our club bodies, John Perham is one such veteran who after a term as vicepresident of the students' association and for three years a member of the sports council and rugby social club is well acquainted with the intricacies of sports organisation.

He believes that sport and cultural activities should be well balanced in terms of finance and student support, but he recognises the main difficulty is not finance, but the failure of many students to realise the place of sport in a well balanced life

He commented on the new social club as being a vehicle for direct aid as well as having indirect benefits to all sports clubs. Asked about the recent criticism of non-students who play in university teams, he saw the non-students as being essential for maintaining good top teams for local club competitions and to attract members to our clubs.

Tony Hassed, long time member of sports council and its chairman for two years, is familiar to most sports club people. President of the Ski Club and chairman of the Blues panel, he saw non-student participants of university teams in a similar light. The older team members, he said, gave continuity and stability to the clubs, ensuring them a chance of success in local competitions. On the social committee Tony thought the original purpose had been misunderstood. In particular he felt not enough weight had been given to direct financial aid.

He realised, however, that money was essential to help clubs with tour arrangements, this last point having been borne out by the recent failure of the women's basketball tour of Australia, to get further than the planning stage.

In the very near future Murray Boldt will start a twoyear post-graduate course of study in England as a 1965 Rhodes Scholar. While at the university he has become well known both as a participant in sport and an administrator.

In 1965 he was awarded a Victoria Athletics Blue and played for two years in the senior B rugby team. He was sports officer from 1964-1965 and a member of the sports council and Blues Committee.

Murray sees the sports social committee as more of a unifying force than a benevolent money giver. His idea is for the organisation to promote club evenings with guest speakers and instructional talks with films.

Concern over the future of Easter tournament he did not think was justified, his main objection to Easter tournament being that many sports were too far out of season.

Overall he saw our sports club structure as healthy and likely to remain so as long as individual clubs remain interested and do not look at every move from the point of view of financial gain.

All three members are in fact happy with the stability of our sports organisation. It would be true to say that they have good reason to be, for they have left us with a stable sports council and a body of clubs more aware of their collective role in our organisation.