Chairman’s report 2015/16

At the Annual General Meeting, the Chairman – Stine Corlin Christensen – on behalf of the Board and the Executive Management presented the report of the year that had passed.

Organization

At the General Meeting in 2015, a new structure for the organization was approved. The board and the tasks of the board was divided between a new board and an executive management. The tasks of the new board was more on a strategic level, making the overall strategy for club, including setting short and long term goals for the work of the board and the executive management. The responsibility of the executive management was the daily management of the club, like the marketing of the club at CBS, communication, the events we host, finding new sponsors as well as executing the present sponsor agreements.

I think that this new structure is a great decision, but I also think that we have learned some things through the past year, meaning that we have to adjust the executive management a bit. But that is a task for the new board.

One of the successful things we have done is to find some volunteers to help our Marketing and Communication Manager, such as a couple of graphic designers and a journalist, and we are working on expanding the group. So on marketing and communication we have a great group and we need to build similar groups around our Sponsor and Event Managers to help them with their areas of responsibility. This will make the organization and the work we do even better. I know it is not always easy to find volunteers, but I think it is easier when you have specific tasks for them, like finding prize sponsors for an event or planning a special lecture in corporation with one of our sponsors. Therefore, the plan for the next year is to build a small group around the Managers and hopefully activate more of our members as well as other CBS students.

Regarding the board, their new task was to make a strategy and a 5-year plan for the club. This strategy was set on a workshop before the summer and includes focus areas for the next year as well as the following years were set.

Strategy

The main bullets in the strategy and 5-year plan for CBS Sport are as followed:

All sports should have practice facilities at Frederiksberg

This is a long term goal, both meaning that the sports who do not have facilities at Frederiksberg should get practice and match hours there, and also that we will help our sport that already have facilities at Frederiksberg on getting more spots and better hours if possible.

Satisfied volunteers

This goal include making a volunteer strategy on how to keep our volunteers as well as how to recruit new volunteers. It also mean a plan on how to contribute to develop of our volunteers and challenge them to get even better.

Recognition of the hard work that our volunteers do is also includes in this goal.

Ensure growth in the numbers of member

This is a long term goal. The goal is to ensure growth in our current sports, not to start any new sports. To ensure that we need to get more facilities as well as more volunteers in the club.

Create a strong community across the club and sports

The goal is to have all sports represented at the Summer and Christmas parties, and that all the sports participate in every sports committee meeting. A better communication across the club will strengthen the CBS Sport.

Ensure sporting development

This we want to ensure by having all the sports make plans and goals for the coming years, so that sports as well as the board and management knows in what direction the sports are heading and so we know how to help the sports on this development.

Development of a marketing strategy

Development of a strategy on how to brand CBS Sport at CBS and outside of CBS. This is important to attract new members and volunteers.

Development of a sponsor strategy

Developing a plan on which sponsors to approach as well as making new sponsor material and deciding which products we can sell and how to divide the sponsor revenue.

Finances and equity

The finances of the club have been a discussed at the last couple of general meetings so the board decided to host an equity workshop. The point of the workshop was both to discuss the appropriate amount of equity in the club as well as how to spend the surplus. Three larger projects were decided:

An education pool for our volunteers to development their skills.
A CBS Sport video to promote the club.
A joined trip for all our sports.
The new board will make a plan for each of these projects.

In the past years CBS Sport have had a surplus. Since we do not budget with a surplus one of the focus areas in the coming year is to secure that we use our budget at the best possible way and on the items that it is intended for. Because it is not the plan that the club or the board should create more savings for the club, since we already have plenty in the bank.

Sports pool

There have been a lot of great applications for the sports pool in 2015 from many of our sports. The volleyball team got funding from the sports pool to participate in a tournament in Amsterdam and came back from the tournament undefeated. The Rugby Men got funds to go to Århus to play the 2. division final, which they won. The handball ladies also used the sport pool funds to get a victory in the DTH Cup in September. Badminton’s participation in Valby Open did not end up with a victory, but they god 3 semi-final spot. So also some success for them.

The Rugby ladies also received fund to go to Funen and Jutland for their tournaments. Most of the sports pool applications was for fund to participate in tournament, but some were also for funds for teambuilding events like the women’s football teams who went ice-skating and had a fun day consisting of canal tour and recording a song.

The board are pleased to see that many of our sports apply for funds from the sports pool and we encourage even more of our sports and members to apply for grants, whether it is for a teambuilding event, a tournament away or some other activity. Just as long as it is something extraordinary which will benefits the sport in a sports way or social way.

Volunteers

CBS Sport would not exist without our great volunteers who spend many hours of their free time preparing for practice and match, going to meetings, doing all the daily management, planning events and much more. Every one of our volunteers are highly appreciated and I cannot thank you enough for the great job you are doing. I know that we can be better to show our appreciation to our volunteers and that is one of the things that I would really like to focus on in the coming year: to be better to recognize, acknowledge and award the enormous work done by volunteers.

One thing we have done for the past couple of year is to host a volunteer event and this year we went ice-skating, which was so much fun. We are also planning to host some training or first aid courses for our volunteers, depending on their interest. So we are expanding the offers we have for our volunteers because we hope that this will give us even better and more dedicated volunteers – even though I’m not sure it is possible to find more dedicated volunteers that the volunteers in CBS Sport.

Once again, to all our volunteers, you are doing an amazing job and thank you for your time and dedication.

Sponsors

In 2015 we got a new sponsor Djøf. The sponsorship agreement with Djøf includes that they were the sponsor of the street football tournament, which now is named Djøf Cup. The first Djøf Cup was held in the fall of 2015 and the next will be held in the spring of 2016.

Danske Bank also continued as sponsor of the football teams as well as the sponsor of the Volunteer of the Year Award, which was handed out at the Christmas Party.

The sponsorship agreement with E.ON was extended and they will continue as sponsor for the Dodgeball Tournament, where they once again participated with a team.

Events

The past year CBS Sport have arranged three big events. The CBS Sport Campus Relay was held in the April. Over 160 runners participated, and the winner of the Relay was #probusiness while Flere PIR’ på FIR came in 2nd and the CBS Employee team Finance One came in on an overall 3rd place.

The street football tournament, Djøf Cup, was held in September. This year the tournament was moved from Dalgas Have to Solbjerg Plads. The wining team was Victorious Secret, on the 2nd place we had SCMs Helte and on 3rd place came team CEMS.

In the beginning of March this year the 4th Dodgeball tournament was on at Porcelænshaven. Once again E.ON was the sponsor and this year the E.ON team came in on a 3rd place. The 2nd place went to De Øl-lympiske 6 and the winners were Alpha Wolf Squadron Pink.

Sports

Moving on from what has happen in CBS Sport in general to what has happen for our many sports. Our sports responsible will take us through that.

Badminton

Morten Bach & Martin Hjorth:

The last year has marked the start of a new era for the badminton team, as we this year managed to start a new tournament team. As the team had to start in the lowest division, nothing less than a first place was the goal at the start of the season. This goal were fully fulfilled, and the team won the division with ease winning all the matches and ending with a final score of 54-6, laying the foundation for next season, where the goal of securing promotion will be the same.
Further we have participated in one individual tournament, where three semi-final spots were secured and the team realy exelled during the following party. This followed perfectly in line with the ambitions, as one of the most important tasks for CBS Sport Badminton is secure a good social atmosphere. In order to do so, we have further arranged several social activities during the last year, like a Christmas Party, Easter Lunch, an “end of the season party” and several nights at Café Nexus.

Basketball

Hatice Koc:

CBS Sport Basketball is still very popular and a lot of people are showing interest in playing for the teams. We are very happy about the big support and expect the teams to have great success and develop in the future.

The highlight on the women’s side this season has been, the women’s team moving up to the 2nd division. They have been playing in “Sjællandsrækken” a couple of years and after coach Latif and Stig took over, the team managed to move up to 2nd division. Hard work has paid off and the team is now ranked number 2 in their league. They will be playing playoff in April. Throughout the season, the team has been practicing once a week. We are hoping to get more gym time next season so the team can practice twice a week and develop even more. This is much needed to continue the big success.

On the Men’s side, all three teams are playing in the same leagues as last year. The 1st team is playing in 2nd division and is still being coached by Asbjørn. We expect them once again to play the playoff in April. The 2nd team got a new coach, Patrick. They are currently number 4 in their league, fighting to clinch a spot in the top 2. This will give them the opportunity to move up to a higher league. The 3rd team is once again being coached by David. They have been having a hard time wining games and are currently ranked number 8 in their league. This is probably due to the fact that many of the players are new and they only have one practice a week.

One thing all the teams’ value is being social, not only in the court but also outside of the court. They all share the love for Basketball and having fun while playing the game. However, the parties and social activities are also a big part of the teams.

We are looking forward to welcoming new players after the summer for the next season. We are hoping to have open practice in September 2016. Everyone who has love and passion for basketball is welcome.

Football

Joachim Satchwell:

The Football department has come a long way from its humble beginnings 10 years ago, fittingly summarized by the award last spring as ‘Athlete of the Year 2015’ by Frederiksberg Sporting Union and the Nordea foundation for sporting excellence, social inclusion and organizational development. However, 2015 also had major developments which have dramatically improved the strength and sustainability of the department.

First and foremost, the leadership of the club has been significantly strengthened. We aimed last year to “…establish an organizational structure that is suited for our size and that can take the department to the next level”. This led to increasing the number of persons involved in the leadership of Football, the so-called ‘Football Council’, from three to seven: Thomas Staalager, having been in the club almost from day 1 and previously holding leadership positions on the Board and in Football, was a strong addition with his experience, knowledge of the club, and relations to the other clubs. He was joined by three external persons: Pia Schou, Tobias Hoff, and Martin Christensen, who act as consultants within their respective specialty area of communication, business development, and sponsorships. Additionally, the Council has increased collaboration with both coaches (operationally) and the Board (strategically) which has provided more ideas, allowed for more focused tasks, better utilized resources, and promoted a sense ownership.

2015 has also seen the establishment of a more sustainable structure for the football department. Operationally we have displayed the ability to successfully attract and retain young, talented students to play for our club through a structured and replicable recruitment process, ensuring a continued affiliation with the student community as per our purpose of “…offering sporting opportunities to students at CBS”. However, we have been adamant to remain an open club and we continue to offer sporting possibilities for our graduates and non-students. The focus on sustainability has also been visible on the Council. Following Alexander Rosenberg stepping down after summer due to exchange, first-year bachelor student Rasmus Svennesen joined the Football Council upon starting CBS in autumn 2015. The past 9 months have been focused on a ‘generational succession’ and he is the Council’s nominee to represent Football in the Sports Council for the coming year. This gradual transfer of responsibility and collaborative leadership style ensures knowledge is retained in the organization, ensures sufficient resources are available and minimizes the effect on daily operations, and ensures an engrained relation with CBS in the years to come.

Moreover, we have continued to strive to improve the opportunities that we offer. One particular focus area is our volunteers, especially the coaches, who we continue to assist in reaching their goals. Two B1 coaching licenses and an M1 license, as well as numerous in-house coaching workshops and the development of a coaches’ forum are just some of the initiatives on this front. We are well-aware that our volunteers are our most important asset and we will continue to assist them in 2016, exemplified by a 50% increase in budgeted funds for volunteer development. We believe this investment ultimately benefits our members through motivated coaches and high-quality practice sessions.

No annual report for a Football club would be complete without a sporting update: the Men’s 11-a-side teams experienced a large reduction in players over the summer as many returned to their native countries as their studies ended, went on exchange, or simply decided to pursue other interests. This was the catalyst allowing for the implementation of the Council’s desired transition towards a more clear separation of sporting offerings, with a competitive and serious 1st team followed by gradually more social teams, thereby improving the ability recruit suitable players for the various teams in the future. Practically it meant that Jesper Jacobsen, together with Michael Magee and Stefán Stefánsson, took over the first team and that two of the 11-a-side teams were strengthen by players and coaches of two 7-a-side teams who wanted to pursue the 11-a-side format. The Women’s squad saw a strong year by first regaining promotion to Københavnerserien in the spring season and then ending the fall season in fourth place. Additionally, the club will establish a second 11-a-side women’s team from spring 2016 for the first time, greatly increasing the stability of the female department. We also continue to offer 7-a-side football for both men and women with three teams currently. These teams are very independent and often consist of players who have been members of the club for some years. These teams are non-profit, with their membership fee barely covering their costs, and they are our attempt to continue to provide sporting opportunities to those who simply want to have a kick-about combined with a social forum.

Finally, a couple of events throughout the year deserve mentioning, not least due to the involvement of numerous awesome volunteers. The Men’s cup-campaign ended in a thriller yet again as AB Tårnby defeated CBS Sport in overtime; a memorable event for the +100 supporters who turned out. Additionally, positive try-out events in both the spring and autumn not only gave good impressions of the club to the many players who were invited, but they have assisted in outlining a replicable concept to screen the many applications we get from prospective players.

CBS Sport Football has continued its development in 2015, both as an ambitious sports club and as a structured student organization. It has for several years been a pioneer on several frontiers, including a focus on organizational sustainability and sporting ambitions, and has during this period gained experience on everything from scaling a sports department to project management. These learnings are relevant to all sports departments in CBS Sport and it is an explicit aim of the Football Council to improve relations with the Sports Committee and the Board to ensure that insights are shared where relevant. We also recognize that many of the challenges ahead are similar to the ones faced by other sports departments and generally are larger and more complex, and it thus makes sense to share the burden and work together. For despite the diversity between the sports departments, we are one club under one brand and it is this communality that gives us our strength in attracting and retaining sporting athletes, coaches and leaders for almost 10 years. Footall has been a part of this journey since the beginning and we have never been in better shape. So it is with excitement that we look to 2016 as we aim to continue to play a prominent role in developing CBS Sport and to challenge the Copenhagen football establishment.

Floorball

Casper Vestergaard:

We started the season full of ambiguity of what would hit us in the upcoming months. On one hand we had a good feeling due to last season’s promotion. On the other hand, we were uncertain of whether we had taken on too big a challenge of competing in the 1st division (the second highest tier in Denmark). During preseason we were blessed with a lot of exchange students, who took great interest in our team. Unfortunately, we had to let some of them go in order to make a competitive team that stood a chance in the 1st division. As we expected, the season was a struggle to avoid relegation, and we have lost the main part of our matches. However, with the fact that won our very last match of the season, we just managed to clinch another season in the 1st division, which was our only success criteria when the season started.

Because we have been blessed with a couple of exchange students in our team, the team has definitely improved and is luckily a little more diversified than it was in the last season. This has also helped us in our practices, where we have the opportunities to make other and more complicated exercises than we did in the previous season. Another factor is the training facilities, which have definitely improved. However, though the training facilities are a lot better this season than in the last season, it remains our hopes that we will be granted a gymnasium, where we are able to practice on the full-size court.

So in order for us to progress and become even more successful than we have proved in our first two seasons, we are dependent of having 3-4 (more or less) experienced players added to our team (e.g. exchange students) and having the right training facilities.

Handball

Marie Schmidt:

This year has been a great year for both the women’s and men’s team. The men’s team has experienced a fantastic increase in the number of new players and has been able to preserve the number throughout the season. As last season, we have two women’s teams and one men’s team. The women’s first team got a new coach this year. We have been very satisfied with the work he has done and hope to continue working together with him next season. The women’s first team is currently placed at third place in Kvalifikationsrækken and has been playing really well. The team has been adapting well to their new coach and style of playing handball. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a coach for the second team, but have received help from the first teams coach and players as well. The second team has taken on the responsibility and dealt with it together. We hope to find a coach for next season. The second team is currently placed at last place in serie 2 which is partly due to the fact that there is not coach in charge. We hope they will do better next season where they will continue to play in serie 2. The men’s team still has two coaches who are doing a really great job. The team has been doing great the whole season. The coaches and players have continued the work from last season and put a lot of effort and hard work into developing the team. Currently, the team is placed at a shared first place in serie 2. The goal is therefore to get promoted to serie 1, which is a realistic achievement for the team. We hope that both teams will continue the hard work and keep up the great spirit during the next season.

Rugby

Nicolai Nygaard:

Last season may have been the best so far in this club’s history in several ways. The numbers for training and games have been almost overwhelming at times. In 2015 we also managed to get new and matching playing kits for both ladies’ and men’s team, which was possible due to our sponsorship agreement with Bootleggers / The Rusty Nail made in 2014. We are currently renegotiating this sponsorship agreement to continue this relationship that we have been very happy with. First of all, one of the major highlights in 2015 was the rugby ladies’ achievement on the field.

Ladies’ team: We have had a huge increase in players, especially in the fall semester, with an average of 15-20 girls turning up to practice. This resulted in CBS showing up with two girls team at the last tournament, which was a historic not just for CBS, but for Ladies Rugby in Denmark generally we believe. Overall, we have had really good numbers at tournaments, even for those far away in Jutland and Odense. For the first time in CBS Ladies history we finished on a 4th place, which is the best performance so far. We won for the first time against the Frederiksberg (the winner of the 2014 Danish Championship). Finally, we have found another great coach that contributes to the duo of very passionate and highly experienced coaches.

Men’s team: The other half of the club also made history the past season by winning the Danish 2nd division championship losing only a single game in 2015. After a slow start in spring, the numbers for trainings and games were consistently high. Sometimes we even had too many players for games, which is a lot considering that 22 players including substitutes are needed to field a full team. The pinnacle of last season was reaching the 2nd division final after winning 2nd division east, which meant the team had to travel to Aarhus to play in a final game that proved to be one of the most physical games of the season against a determined and physically bigger team, but CBS fought hard in a thrilling match to grind out a 40-17 victory. The bus trip home was one big party that continued all night long after arriving in Copenhagen. This year we, of course, hope to make our way to the 2nd championship final again and take home some more trophies for the club room. The men’s team is still looking for a coach though, but currently we are managing with some veteran players taking charge of practices, and we will use last year’s success as a platform to continue the create the positive results.

Moreover, the club will host the ladies’ 7s tournament again this year after successfully hosting the women’s tournament for the first time in 2015. This year we will have the honour of hosting the final tournament on October 26 and will do our best to top last year of course.

Finally, we would just like to thank our players, our sponsor and not least our volunteers.

Skaterhockey

Skaterhockey had only one team participating in tournament this year. In results in the regular tournament have not been that great, but in the spring they participated in the European Cup where they ended on an 8th place. But a great triumph in the tournament was that CBS Sport Panthers got their player, Morten Lee Olsen, on the All Star Team of the European Cup.

Tennis

Mathias Kristensen & Carl Fredrik Eklöw:

CBS Sport Tennis now has two new sports responsibles. With almost 30 members in the spring semester and 40 members in the fall semester, 2015 was a good year for CBS Tennis. A lot of interest is still shown for tennis both through emails, Sport days and at the try-outs arranged at the beginning of each new season, though the most important recruiting event for tennis is the CBS Sport Day where we can reach out to a lot of students interested in joining CBS Sport Tennis.

Students partner up or are being matched according to their level at the try-outs, and a weekly fixed court is booked for them throughout the season. On our Facebook group the members swap their courts or fill in when sickness hits some players in order to avoid booked courts not being used. CBS Sport Tennis has a lot of diverse players from all over the world (with some new-comers, others having played many years back and taken the opportunity to play again through us, and yet others are advanced players at their home universities). Many of our members are exchange students, but there is also a number of recurring full-time CBS students who have been signed up both for our spring and fall semester. We organized a CBS Tennis tournament with great success, as well as hosting two smaller get-togethers for our members, aiming to create a better social bond within CBS Tennis.

As another way of improving the social bond within CBS Tennis, and as a way to recruit more members in the future, we have started up a new project for 2016. This project entails starting up the first Danish university tennis team. We now have seven very talented international competitive players, who train together and hopefully get to play some matches against other tennis clubs in and around Copenhagen. We are very much looking forward to seeing how this project will evolve in 2016.

Volleyball

Jens Gyldenkærne:

Volleyball has been growing slow but steady the last couple of seasons. In spring 2015 we had 2 teams and 2 weekly practice sessions. In the fall season we ended with four teams and 4½ weekly sessions. Apart from our regular open tournaments with SVBK we are now part of a network of 4 clubs organizing open volleyball sessions – this has been a great success.

A huge number of players were interested in the competitive team in the fall season – and the resulting team was stronger than ever. Unfortunately, a high number of the players are here for just 1 or 2 semesters – so we are starting over again when a new semester begins.

In November, we had a mix team joining a big international tournament in Amsterdam. Despite being affected by injuries and late cancellations, the team managed to win the tournament undefeated.

Thank you all

That was the update in the last year in CBS Sport. I am looking forward to the coming year with the events, projects and great results it will bring.

Stine Corlin Christensen
Chairman of CBS Sport