Dear Kiwi Handball Community
Competitive handball in New Zealand might be pretty much done and dusted for another year, but there’s still plenty of handball-related activity happening to update you all on.
But for starters, it’s exciting to see the first Men’s National Training Squad camp scheduled to take place in Wellington in the last weekend of October. This is a critical phase of the Men’s National Team’s campaign to compete in the 2022 Asian Handball champs penciled in for Dubai in just 15 months’ time. Even if COVID-19 travel restrictions get in the way of that, the NTS is still a great opportunity to get in some off-season training ahead of next year’s handball, and National Men’s Team coach Fred Han has pulled together a great management group around him to help maximise the experience for all involved. If you are interested in taking part and have yet to register, please get in touch with Fred.
Your Executive Committee met again early this month to thrash out a workplan for the months ahead, and we will continue to meet on the first Monday each month (other than January) through to next year’s AGM. If you want to add an item to any meeting agenda, please drop a line to Secretary@handball.org.nz prior to the end of the month before.
One of the first things we did this month was fill a constitutional hole by appointing an NZHF Complaints Officer. Hopefully the position is seldom needed, but having a robust disciplinary and complaints process in place is a key component to us being formally recognised by Sport NZ, and this role is an important part of that. Gaston Fuso is the new NZHF Complaints Officer. We will develop a formal complaints process to help Gaston with that role that will post on the website once approved.
The other position outside the Exec we have created is that of Media Officer, and it will come as no surprise that Jun Tanlayco has taken on the role. We look forward to Jun continuing the great work he has done in promoting New Zealand handball and providing great coverage of handball games and events over the years.
Improving the governance framework for NZHF is a big piece of work we are getting underway, with a couple of important policies needing to be adopted and a refresh of the constitution. Watch this space for further updates on that front – as a membership based organisation, getting input into the way things work from as many stakeholders as possible is important, so we will be rolling out a couple of consultations/surveys over the coming months.
Over the remainder of the year we have got a bit of planning to do, with each of the NZHF’s portfolios having a number of tasks to get squared away. The most pressing is the summer beach handball schedule, where Willy Silcock has been busy trying to coordinate local competitions and camps. Attending the Aussie Beach Handball Champs in February looks like a long shot, but if we can’t get anything up and running internationally we are committed to hosting the best domestic programme that we can. I’ll provide an update on other portfolios and plans for 2021 in next month’s update.
And to end on a positive note, we have just received a modest grant from the IHF for COVID support, which is greatly appreciated. We will be investing what we have received in a specific initiative so the grant doesn’t just get lost in routine admin. It’s not a huge amount, but it will allow us to look at a couple of initiatives that may otherwise have been outside budget.
Keep safe out there
David Ireland
President
New Zealand Handball Federation