When
Mercia Baaitjies, the KwaZulu-Natal Inland provincial coordinator for the KFC
Mini-Cricket programme was runnerup for the coordinator of the year in 2016 it
was testament to her passion for the game, and for working with children, and
also to her exceptional planning and organizational ability.
Earlier in the year she had some personal problems due to giving birth to
twins, prematurely, but she had matters well in hand and her long term planning
allowed the programme to run smoothly even while she was in hospital. And on
the day that she got out, she popped in to her local KFC Mini-Cricket
Provincial festival to make sure that it was running smoothly.
Mercia’s involvement in
cricket began in the Eastern Cape. When she was younger she played for the
Eastern Province women’s cricket side and she always saw herself working for a
sporting union and with famous people.
Then, in 2008 her family
moved to Port Elizabeth and she was looking for a job. She saw an advert for a
receptionist at the Eastern Province Cricket Board. She applied and got the job
and did so well that they soon included the administration of Mini-Cricket to
her portfolio.
In 2010 KFC took over
the sponsorship of KFC Mini-Cricket and together with Cricket South Africa,
they decided to appoint dedicated provincial coordinators at all the unions and
Mercia was appointed the Eastern Province KFC Mini-Cricket coordinator.
She was there until June
2013 when SA Cricket offered her the position to run the KwaZulu-Natal office
as their Inland KFC Mini-Cricket Provincial Coordinator.
So, she moved to
Pietermaritzburg with her husband, who managed to get a transfer from his
company, and her 5 year-old son.
She soon found that
working in KZN was completely different to Port Elizabeth. Many of the schools
are in remote rural areas and e-mail communication was not as easy as it was in
the Eastern Cape.
She has to visit the
schools and build face-to-face relationships with the people responsible for
KFC Mini-Cricket in the KZN Inland region. Sibonelo Ncobo, who ran the region
before her, was very helpful initially. He introduced her to the teachers at
some of the schools in the area, and she soon learned that she would have to
change the way that she did things to be more effective in her new province.
Since she took over in
the area she has learned a lot and has grown the programme considerably,
incorporating schools that never played cricket before.
Mercia believes her
greatest strength is her ability to plan ahead. She is a very structured and
well organized person and she has already got her plans for the 2017/18 season
in place.
“To become a good KFC
Mini-Cricket Provincial coordinator you need to be patient,” she says. “You
need a positive attitude, you need to love people, you need to manage your time
correctly and you need to be flexible.
“Through the programme I
have learned to be patient, to manage my time and to listen to people.”
Mercia’s husband and her
kids are very supportive. They understand the demands on her and are willing to
go to the KFC Mini-Cricket events that she organizes to help her run them.
Her career highlights so
far are definitely last season as the coordinator of the year and that she is
so organized that she was asked to assist KwaZulu-Natal coastal to run their
KFC Mini-Cricket Kids vs Proteas match in Umlazi.
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