ATC 10-Year Celebration!

Friday 2 December 2016 at the Nomad bistro fusion, 33 Waterkant Street Cape Town.

Thank you very much to everyone who attended the ATC Awards ’16 and 10 Year Celebration Function last Friday.  It was a great evening and party with founding members, 10-year members, recent members, special guests and athletes living up to ATC’s reputation of celebrating to the max!

Founding Chairman, STeve Attwell, welcomed guests, sponsors, Olympians, famous people, members, non-members and former members, who are, most importantly, friends.  Everyone did a special toast to 10 years of ATC with a shot from commemorative ATC double shot glasses.

Special Guests

We were honoured to have some very special guests at the function:

Paul Kaye, the voice of Ironman, was unfortunately out of the country, announcing at another Ironman event.  He sent us a great video welcoming everyone.

Dr Debbie Alexander, who has recently stepped down as President of Triathlon South Africa and will now serve as one of the Board members for the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC).  Debbie was also re-elected to the ITU Executive Board for another 4 year term to serve.

Richard Murray, Olympian, current Duathlon World Champion and who recently won the exclusive Island House Tri, joined us for a last bit of fun before his season starts in earnest again.

How ATC Started

STeve gave us a bit of history on how he himself entered the sport of Triathlon in London in 2004, as a complete novice.  Seeking ways to improve his sport and meet fellow Triathletes, and a girl, he stumbled on a notice recruiting South Africans to join a Wimbleton based Triathlon club, called SAUK (South Africans in the United Kingdom).   STeve joined SAUK and immediately experienced the benefits of a club with training facilities, structured training and club kit.

STeve returned to South Africa in 2005 for a summer holiday in Cape Town, and never left.  He immediately recognised the need for a Triathlon Club in Cape Town and in July 2006, formed the Atlantic Triathlon Club with a “borrowed” Constitution a “planned” AGM, a friend (Guy Veysey) who understood what the aforementioned meant, and 7 members.  Back then, the requirement from the Western Province Triathlon Association (WPTA) was for 8 members.  So STeve called up Grant Fillmore, a Capetonian and professional Triathlete, who was racing in Germany at the time.   After convincing Grant that they knew each other, ATC had its 8^th member and was open for business!

10 Year Members

The first 10 members who joined ATC have since been given lifelong membership:  STeve Attwell (1), Guy Veysey (2), Carla Kelly (3), Victoria Reuvers (5), Adam Veysey (6), Tristan Kelly (7), Grant Fillmore (8), Brett Chilcott (9) and Jason Lind (10).  These members were joined on stage by other 10-year members (those who were present) to receive a special 10-year member Swim Cap:  Brenton Ashby, Michael Du Toit, Dale Gallagher, Anthony Dean, Paul Kaye, Paul Ingpen, Sarah Malherbe, Jay Richards, Gert Wilkins, Cobus Van Den Berg, Luke Gerrett, Paul Gordon-Brown, Olivia McKinley and Katey Gerrett.

The ATC Brand

The Atlantic Triathlon Club’s first logo (80C) featured the number 80, which represented the “AT” in ATC, was the benchmark of a good Sprint Triathlon Time and was the target membership count for the first year.

In 2007, acclaimed brand strategists at Pitchblack Design, Athol Moult, developed our new brand, which is still in use today.  The ATC brand is integral to differentiating the Club and creating a “stand out or die out” attitude. Designed to be a simple and clean, the logo utilises the trident symbol, derived from Neptune, God of the Sea, which ties is with our close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. The shape of the trident can be seen as an interaction of the letters A-T-C, the three spikes representing the three disciplines of triathlon. The trident symbolises moving forward, strength, power and dominance.

Athol created formal and informal “graffiti” variations of the brand to be used on our clothing and everywhere else!

The ATC Homes

ATC’s first base was the Master Mariner’s Club in Moullie Point, a smokey, wooden, drinker’s bar and soccer club.  It served us well as a place to run from, do beep tests, and have a beer.  This was demolished in 2009 as part of the re-development for the Soccer World Cup. 

We also gained access to the Camps Bay Primary School sports field for a weekly track session and with the help of the, now retired professional Triathlete, Grant Fillmore, this session quickly grew into a major asset for us.

In 2009 we moved to the Oceana Power Boat Club, with a much bigger bar, more smoke, a pool and access to the Atlantic Ocean.  Our track session also moved to the Camps Bay High School Fields, below La Med.

In 2010, after hard work and skilful negotiation, we managed to gain access to the V&A Waterfront Canals for a weekly swim in the heart of the City, in clean salt water, free of big fish.  This has become our most valuable training facility and in July 2016, we had our 10 000^th happy swim the Canal.

In 2015 we negotiated a rental agreement with the Green Point Cricket Club (GPCC) to give us access to the field, parking for the newly acquired and renovated ATC Container, the club house with shower facilities, and a much bigger and cleaner bar!

GPCC is across the road from GPAS (Green Point Athletics Stadium) and we immediately set our sights on that amazing blue track.  It took a lot of hard work and more skilful negotiation and, late in 2015, we finally signed a contract for two weekly sessions.

So, for now, ATC is set with a great home base and two fantastic training facilities.

ATC Development

Our development started in 2009 when Liné Griffith needed a runner for her team at XTERRA SA Champs.  She called on Barry Goliath who initially agreed to do it but then decided to call in Riaan Wildskut for the job.  When Riaan’s started the run leg his team was lying in 50^th position but Riaan ran them into 12^th overall and they came 2^nd in the mixed category.  That was the start of many such partnerships between ATC Development runners and cyclists such as Craig Boyes and Louis Bresler-Knipe. 

In 2010 Barry took over as ATC Development coach and he had three athletes:  Riaan Wildskut, Evan Fortuin and Haroldene De Jager.

In 2011 WP Athletics started the Kids Athletics Program, which was aimed at getting kids between the ages of 8 and 14 into athletics and running.  WPA offered clubs the opportunity to bring 10 kids onto the program.  Barry jumped at the chance and went back to WPA with a list of 20 kids from schools in the Kraaifontein area. 

As the kids grew too old for the Kids athletics program, they moved into the ATC Junior Team, participating in Track & Field, Cross Country, Trail Running and Road Races.  Our kids rule the Spur Cape Summer and Winter Trail series, often winning all the categories we participate in. 

ATC Development often joins forces with the Youth Empowerment Program (YEP) Cycling Clan, from Khayalitsha and Velo Khaya, from Khayamandi, to enter Duathlon and Triathlon team competitions.  More often than not, taking a couple of podiums in the process.

Currently our Development Team is over 20 strong and we have more Juniors than Kids on the program.  Costs to run this program is escalating each year, with transport being the biggest expense.  We rely heavily on membership fees and funds generated through sponsorships from New Balance and Swish Properties to fund the program.

The ATC Development Awards function for the younger kids and juniors takes place on Saturday.  We will report back on the award winners in the New Year.

ATC Development Awards

ATC Development held its annual awards ceremony for the younger kids on Saturday afternoon (10 December 2016).   Congratulations to the ATC Kids Runner of the Year, Jenedean Rudolph.  Ashwin Beukes received the award for the Most Consistent Performance.  Sixteen of the other youngsters received certificates for consistent participation in Track & Field, Cross Country and Road Running.  If you read our newsletter regularly you will recognise these names as they often appear for top positions in their age categories:  Bruzonia Brits, Casedy Rudolph, Christopher Beukes, Eldino Thompson, Esten Everts, Gailine Aries, Human Beukes, Jayline Sevieres, Jesnique April, Junior Beukes, Juraida Aries, Leshe Fortuin, Shamodean Koonthea, Shaun-D Beukes, Shaunica Phillips and Tamaryn Beukes.

Sponsors

ATC has had the assistance of various sponsors over the years, most notably:  New Balance, Kelfords Motors and Swish Properties.

The New Balance sponsorship started in 2009 and we are happy to announce that it will be renewed for 2017, which will be the 8^th year running for us!  New Balance provides shoes for our development athletes and prizes for our bi-annual Sunset Team Time Trial.  In addition, we get awesome New Balance technical training products, which we sell to our members to generate cash for development.

We have worked with Kelfords Motors, through Tristan Kelly, one of our founder members, on various projects and initiatives over the years.  From 2009 to 2015 Team Kelfords was a sponsored team of enthusiastic ATC athletes, making their mark at all types of multi-sport events in the Western Cape.  In 2015, Kelfords, ATC and Embark went into a joint venture to purchase a new vehicle, now known as the ATC Ranger, to fulfil the club’s transport duties.  In 2016 Kelfords started the Ford-for-a-Month campaign at ATC’s monthly club time trial.  Each month a member wins the opportunity to drive a Ford for the month.

In 2014, Giancarlo Lanfranchi, from Swish Properties, came on board as ATC’s headgear sponsor, with an agreement to co-brand the ATC Visors and Swim Caps.  The ATC Swim Cap is a mandatory item for the ATC Canal Swim and is our biggest selling item.  This sponsorship creates valuable cash to fund our development program.

ATC Chairman’s Trophy

Every year, when we discuss the nominations for the ATC’s Most Devoted Member award, prominent role players within our sport are brought up for consideration and we debate whether or not we should award this accolade to one of these persons.  And every year we have to remind ourselves that the Most Devoted Member award must go to an ATC Member whose devotion has been, primarily, to the benefit of the club.  So in celebration of our tenth anniversary, Gert Wilkins proposed that we introduce a new award:  The ATC Chairman’s Trophy.  This was proposed to the ATC Committee, without the current Chairman’s knowledge as he would also be a candidate to receive this award in the first year.

The ATC Chairman’s Trophy will be ATC’s most prestigious award and will be awarded to a person who has made a significant contribution to the sports that our club participates in.  This trophy will be awarded at the discretion of the ATC Chairman, with input from the committee or whomever the Chairman wishes to consult.  Unlike other ATC Awards, this accolade does not have to be awarded every year, nor does it have to be awarded to an ATC Member.

So, henceforth, this Trophy will be awarded BY the ATC Chairman but the Committee decided that the inaugural trophy would be awarded to the founding and current Chairman of ATC, STeve Attwell, for is contribution to the sport of Triathlon and to the ATC club, over the past 10 years.  To elaborate on STeve’s contribution to ATC would be to repeat the highlights already covered in this newsletter.  It suffices to say that he was an integral part of every milestone achieved by ATC over the past 10 years. 

STeve is brilliant at delegating, as a Chairman should be.  However, STeve still puts more time and effort into the club than most other members, including members of the committee.  His negotiation skills and knack to avoid conflict has benefited the sport and ATC tremendously, particularly when it comes to gaining access to training facilities.  On many occasions he has skilfully prevented discussions from spiralling into useless heated arguments, invariably to the benefit of ATC.

Knowing that Triathlon is a daunting and difficult sport to get into and realising the limited resources available to non-profit establishments, STeve launched Embark in 2009 and with it the unique concept of group coached training.  Since then, Embark has coached hundreds of new Triathletes into the sport and is responsible for a healthy injection of new members into ATC every year.  Over the years the partnership between ATC and Embark has grown to be mutually beneficial, whilst ATC gains a lot more from this than Embark does.

So, at the awards ceremony, STeve was presented with a small prototype of the ATC Chairman’s Trophy, to keep as commemoration of his 10 years of service to ATC.  Knowing how passionate STeve is about the ATC brand and how insistent he is with the accuracy of brand representation, the final trophy will only be manufactured once he has approved the design and expense.  We want this trophy to match the stature of its recipients, so we need something impressive and unique to ATC.  It is envisaged that the trophy will be launched at the next AGM.

Thank You:

We would like to thank the Awards ’16 Sub-Committee for their assistance in arranging and managing the event:  Robyn Elford (Red Lip Marketing), Jessica Griesel (Hello Monday), Simon Katz (Katz Photography), Francois Ashton (Falcon Sound), Ilze Els, Mirella Biagioni, Claire Moorhouse, Lara Browne, Genine Manchip, Kristin Milne, Paul Gordon-Brown, STeve Attwell, Gert Wilkins and the staff of Nomad Bistro Fusion.

AWARD WINNERS:

Congratulations to all the winners of decade and annual awards!

Decade Awards:

ATC’s Athletes of the Decade are:   Jean De Villiers and Vivienne Williams!

Most Devoted Member of the Decade:  Gert Wilkins.

Performance Awards:

2016 Athletes of the Year:  Iain Mc Gregor (Male), Caitlin Van Den Berg (Female), Owen Jansen (Junior).

Swimmer of the Year:  Kiara Barnes.

Cyclist of the Year:  Douglas Burger.

Runner of the Year:  Bruzano Brits.

Legends Challenge:  Piet Viljoen

Club Champions:

Improvement Awards:

Rookie of the Year:  Davide Del Fante.

Most Improved Athlete:  Amanda Bloch.

Best Beginner:  Meagan Sobotker.

Service Awards:

Most Devoted Member for 2016:  Jointly to Paul Gordon-Brown and Travys Wilkins.

5 Year Service Awards:  Anthony Dean and Barry Goliath.

Summer Sunset Team Time Trial Helpers Award:  Esther Patience, Grant Jardine, Alexander Schubert and Rogeema Kenny.

Best Supporter:  Lara Browne.

Best Team Name at the Summer Sunset Team Time Trial:  Worst Pace Scenario.

Best Dressed at the Clanwilliam Fitness Festival after-party:  Mario Penzo and Peter McEwan.