Our farewell function for our team of amateur boxers going off to Cuba went very well.

It was good to be back in South Africa, Durban specifically, last week after some more international travel spreading the sporting word.

Sitting here in Australia, evaluating the two cities bidding for the Commonwealth Games for 2018, one keeps thinking about the requirements for hosting the Games in any country that wants to bid for the Commonwealth Games.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Hungary and came away with a lot interesting observations that we our sporting fraternity can learn from.

As per normal it's been another busy period for both me and the SASCOC team.

Last week saw us in parliament to listen to the maiden budget vote speech of Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, a speech that was well received by all.

My recent focus has been monitoring all our star athletes on the OPEX programme. Sure, there have been some injuries here and there, but we have put together a specialised medical team that is doing fantastic work with these athletes.

Our sporting fraternity has had to deal with two very sad moments already this year with the passing of cyclist Carla Swart and then more recently our dear director-general of sport, Vernie Petersen.

By now I'm sure it sounds pretty familiar but it's been another hectic period for both me and SASCOC recently.

The festive season has simply flown by, way too quickly in fact, but now it's down to facing up to the challenges that lie ahead in 2011.