(adapted fron the book Time cultivates winners. Senwes - A century of agriculture by Elize van Eeden)
A Moment in history
By the 1940s, employee rallies were an established practice. Three different rallies were held at three different locations depending on where the staff were situated.
At that stage, about 600 white workers and an unknown number of black workers (about a thousand) were enough to get one or more type of sport of the ground. This was an outcome of the needs presented at the first staff conference of 1947. In 1954, sports clubs were established that staff members could become a part of. JC Steyn was the first chairperson of the Recreation Club.
The rugby club was established in 1948 and is probably the oldest Senwes club. By 1956, most sport codes already formed part of the Sentraalwes Cooperative (SWC) Recreation Club. For some sports, clubs were only formed for a period of a year.
After the first fully fledged sporting tournament, Senwes became synonymous with sports and recreation and expanded to include more sporting codes. In 1979, mention was made of a sportsman relief fund, members fund and sports club fund. Tennis, bowling, badminton, cricket and angling with darts also joined the listed recreational clubs at Senwes.
As the years passed, the recreational club activities remained highlights in employee social calendars. By 2009, most of these clubs focused on meetings where camaraderie between the members was the main focus. Senwes made financial contributions by way of subsidy to the members, to enable them to keep running smoothly and carry on with their activities. By the centenary year, several of the ckubs were affiliated to larger sport or social association in the North West. However, participation in those tournaments occurred mainly on an individual basis. The recreational Club was dissolved in 1990/91 and the land sold the Klerksdorp Municipality.