A member's guide · 24th Annual General Meeting · LSA

Your federation is on the agenda.

On Saturday 31 October, 33 votes will settle a new constitution, a six-year plan, a tough set of accounts and who leads LSA next. You don't hold one of those votes. Your province does. This page is the short version of a very long pack, so you can have your say before the meeting and keep at it afterwards.

DateSat 31 Oct 2026
Countdown6 days
Items33 on the agenda
Annexures1A to 1AP

Open the full agenda and annexures →

All information provided is as received by official communication from Lifesaving South Africa. This is an independent guide — not affiliated with or endorsed by LSA.

Who decides

33 votes. None of them are yours directly.

National Council votes, not individual members. Each province gets 2 votes plus 1 more for every 400 active members it declared. The senior delegate casts all of them. Management Board members get a vote each, which adds up to 10, close to a third of the room.

So the route from you to the vote is short: your club talks to your province, your province briefs its delegate. Pick your province to see where you sit.

Source: Agenda item 2.5 (voting strength) and 2.2 (attendance register)

What's being decided

Six things that will reach your club

Most of the 33 items are routine. These are the ones that change how LSA works, what it costs you, or who's in charge.

Item 7.1 · Annexure 1A, 1B

A rewritten constitution

National Council sets policy and oversees; the Management Board executes. Every commercial deal has to be disclosed and checked by the Finance Committee before it's signed, and approving a budget no longer counts as approving the contracts buried inside it.

Safeguarding becomes a constitutional duty. Grievances get a fixed path: club, then province, then Board or committee, then National Council, whose decision is final.

Why it matters: these are the rules you'd use if something goes wrong at your club. It's the biggest item on the day.

Item 7.3 · Annexure 1C

Board terms go from 3 to 4 years

The idea is to line up with SASCOC and the Olympic four-year cycle, and give leaders time to see projects through. It would apply from this AGM.

Why it matters: whoever is elected on Saturday could be in the seat until 2030. Note the election item (24) still says a three-year term, so ask which applies.

Item 9 · Annexure 1E, 1F

The 2026–2032 strategic plan

Six pillars: governance, money, sport and Olympic readiness, lifeguard qualifications, drowning prevention, and Africa. Phase 1 (2026–27) is the boring but vital stuff: a commercial company, a working member database, and stopping the slide in membership.

Why it matters: active membership fell from 5,712 in 2021 to 5,019 in 2025, and the plan admits the federation runs with no reserves.

Item 10 · Annexures 1G–1P

Accounts, budgets, and a commercial arm

Approve last year's accounts (a R1.28m loss), this year's budgets, and talk about a draft MOI for LSA Commercial (Pty) Ltd, a company that would hold trading income away from the non-profit.

Why it matters: see the money section below. This is where the hard questions belong.

Item 24 · Annexures 1AG–1AO

Elections

President, Vice President and Director of Legal Affairs each have one nominee. Two seats are contested: one Management Board seat with four candidates, and Director of Sport with two.

Why it matters: the Director of Finance post falls vacant when the meeting closes, and there's no nomination for it on the agenda.

Items 11.5, 18, 19 · Annexures 1T, 1Y–1AB

Policies you'll feel

A procurement policy (quotes, conflict declarations, Finance sign-off above a limit). An Athlete Development Fund for national team athletes in financial need. Exam vouchers that expire each 31 March. A proposed R50 online access charge as exams move to an online platform.

Why it matters: anyone working with under-18s needs a valid police and child-protection clearance, renewed every 2 years. The vetting list is up for ratification.

The money

A hard year, said plainly

The Director of Finance's report (Annexure 1G) doesn't soften it, so neither will we. Figures are from the draft, pre-audit statements for the year to 31 March 2026.

R12.96mtotal revenue
R1.28mloss for the year
R0.93mfurther loss, 1 Apr to 16 Sep 2026

Cash in the bank

And not all of that is spendable. About R2.0m of the balances is ring-fenced money (Lotto, DSAC, WaterSmart, the athlete hardship fund and tour monies) that can't pay the running costs. The accounts will carry a going-concern material uncertainty: the auditors may flag that LSA's ability to keep operating depends on things going to plan.

What the Finance Committee found

  • Sport ran at a loss it didn't have to. Spending wasn't cut when promised sponsorship and funding didn't arrive.
  • The World Championships budget was unfundable. It started at about R40.8m. Rebuilt at R14.75m, it still shows a deficit of about R1.89m, with R2.14m of extra income identified that could close it. A R3.6m Nelson Mandela Bay contribution is left out until it's signed. LSA has prepaid about R2.02m to the ILS.
  • SA Champs spending couldn't be backed up. Of about R1.15m reviewed, roughly 23% had supporting documents. It surfaced an undisclosed arrangement involving a contracted official, now before the Disciplinary Committee. LSA has reserved its right to recover money.
  • Tax returns were filed as nil for three years. Being tax-exempt doesn't remove the duty to declare income. The committee will get specialist advice and size any exposure after the World Champs.
  • Suppliers were appointed outside Finance. That's the reason for the procurement policy on the agenda.

The positive side: these were found because someone asked for a reconciliation the agreements already allowed for. Payments now go through a weekly sign-off against a cash-flow forecast.

What it costs you

Fees have already gone up

These increases were approved by provinces by memo in August 2026 and are on the agenda for noting. Your club pays capitation for each member.

FeeWasNow
Capitation, active member (incl. R5 to the hardship fund and accident cover for members on duty)R65R75
Capitation, NipperR60R70
Affiliation, each of the four larger provincesR20,300R22,330
Exam feesIncreased, see Annexure 1M

One thing to do now: from 2027/28 capitation will be worked out only from the LSA database as at 31 March, not club returns. If your registration is wrong or missing, get it fixed before 31 March.

Item 24

On the ballot

PositionNominees (nominated by)
PresidentWarren Prins (LWC)unopposed
Vice PresidentDhaya Sewduth (LWC)unopposed
Management Board, 1 seatGarth Crickmore-Thompson (GPLA), Julian Buys (LWC), Claudio Miller (LWC), Renee Vrahimis (LWC)contested
Director of SportBrent Shield (LWC), Grant Breetzke (LEC)contested
Director of Legal AffairsKenneth Jooste (LWC)unopposed
Director of FinanceNo nomination listed. The co-opted post ends at the close of the AGM.gap

CVs are Annexures 1AG to 1AO. Read them before you brief your delegate.

Questions for the Management Board candidates

Four candidates are competing for one seat. With LSA facing financial pressure and governance reform, delegates should ask all four:

  • What financial oversight or governance experience do you bring, and how will you use it to hold the executive to account on the Finance Committee's findings?
  • The Board will oversee a new constitution, a commercial company and a recovery from going-concern uncertainty. Which of these is your priority, and what will you do in your first year to move it forward?
  • Three of the four nominees come from one province. How will you ensure your decisions on the Board represent the interests of all provinces and their members, not just your own?

Questions for the Director of Sport election

This is the only contested directorship. The Finance Committee report (Annexure 1G) found that sport ran at a loss because spending was not cut when expected income did not arrive, and that SA Champs expenditure lacked supporting documentation. After LSA's hardest financial year in recent memory, delegates should read each candidate's CV (Annexures 1AN and 1AO) alongside the Finance report and put these questions to both candidates:

  • Have you ever held a role — whether elected, appointed, acting or contracted — with responsibility for sport budgets or expenditure at LSA? If so, which role, in which period, and what was the financial outcome?
  • The Finance Committee found that an undisclosed arrangement involving a contracted official is now before the Disciplinary Committee. Do you have any personal involvement in, or knowledge of, the matters under investigation?
  • Name three specific controls you will put in place in your first year to ensure every rand spent on events is budgeted, approved and documented before it is committed.
  • What is your position on the new procurement policy, and will you commit to full Finance Committee sign-off on all sport expenditure above the threshold?
  • What is your vision for making LSA sport financially sustainable — not just competitive — over the next four years?
  • How will you ensure athletes have a direct voice at Board level — not just through provincial structures — when decisions are made about selection, funding and competition formats?
  • Will you commit to establishing a formal athlete representative or commission that reports directly to the Director of Sport and has standing input into Board decisions affecting athletes?
  • How will you ensure fair and equal representation, funding and development opportunities across both pool and surf disciplines — rather than one being treated as secondary to the other?
  • What will you do to ensure selection criteria, competition calendars and resource allocation are transparent and equitable for pool and surf athletes alike?
  • Will you commit to publishing national team selection criteria before each selection cycle, so that every athlete knows exactly what standards they need to meet?
  • How will you ensure the selection process is independent, free from conflicts of interest, and subject to a clear and accessible appeals procedure?
"There is no LSA somewhere else. There is no head office that is not us." Kenneth Jooste, Director of Finance, personal note attached to Annexure 1G

His note is worth five minutes of your time. The gist: we've got good at discussing problems and bad at closing them. We go easy on each other because we're all volunteers. And we talk about "LSA" like it's someone else. If you don't get an answer, escalate it: club, district, province, Board, Council. That's what the structure is for.

What you can do

Four ways in

This week

Brief your delegate

Phone or message your club chair or provincial secretary and ask how the province plans to vote. Take these with you:

  1. Is the new Board term three years or four, and how will we vote on it?
  2. Who becomes Director of Finance after Saturday?
  3. What happens to the World Champs budget if the R3.6m from Nelson Mandela Bay doesn't come through?
  4. When will we know the size of the tax exposure?
  5. What will the Commercial company cost before it earns anything?
Before Sat

Read three documents

If you only read three: the constitution changes matrix (1B, two pages), the Director of Finance report (1G), and the strategic plan (1E). They're all in the full AGM pack, along with the agenda.

This season

Step up

The plan leans on volunteers for 87% of what LSA delivers. Clubs need coaches, technical officials, assessors and facilitators, and their names get ratified at every AGM. If you've thought about it, this is the year.

After the AGM

Keep asking

Ask your province for the resolutions and minutes. Check back on what was promised: the tax advice, the Disciplinary Committee outcome, the World Champs result, the Phase 1 milestones. A vote on Saturday is only the start.

Also on the agenda

Ratifying the team for the Lifesaving World Championships in Gqeberha, 2–6 December 2026 · 2027 Inter-Club Champs in Durban, 24 April to 1 May · Bravery awards · Honours for Desmond Kiewiets, Ian Jackson and Mandy Thompson · Honorary life membership for Bruce Roberts · New clubs St Francis Bay SLC and Sinangwana SLC · A new Lifesaving Sport award.

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About this site

This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by Lifesaving South Africa. The official LSA website is lifesaving.co.za. We are an independent platform providing news, articles and information about lifesaving in South Africa — written by members, for members. Our goal is to make federation documents, decisions and developments more accessible so that every lifesaver can stay informed and have their say.