Dear NZ Handball Community
Autumn already, and you can almost smell the aroma of the indoor season just around the corner. In fact, it is even closer than around the corner, kicking off in earnest this weekend with the Queenstown Handball Tournament, followed a couple of weeks later in Wellington by the Hello Handball 2021 event hosted by Victoria University Handball Club. It’s a fantastic lead in to what we hope will be a bumper season of New Zealand indoor handball – thanks to the organisers of those two events for all the effort they have put in to making them happen, and all the best to those taking part.
Speaking of thanks and fantastic events, hats off to Willy Silcock and the team making it all happen at Elmwood Park for a magical beach programme this summer. Congratulations to the North Island Rep Teams for taking out both the Men’s and Women’s Trophies in a hard-fought best of three series. The future of New Zealand beach is looking bright with the depth of talent on display, and we can now just cross our fingers that the planets will align to open up some international beach competition by the end of the year.
The other big news on the Tournament front is that after much debate we have made the call to change the focus of the Auckland regional tournament in May from a high-performance rep team event to an open tournament. The original intention was to kick the season off with a hiss and a roar, with no other openings in the calendar available to hold the Auckland tournament on a weekend other than mid-May. Taking on board feedback received from a number of stakeholders, we have decided to defer the regional rep tournament to much later in the year. This better aligns with the high-performance calendar, and opening up this pre-season tournament to a wider range of players is also better aligned with the inclusive value we strive to observe.
Keep an eye out for details of the replacement high-performance regional tournament that we hope to be able to confirm in the next update. Meantime, we are looking forward to see as many of the handball class of 2021 from around the country battle it out in Auckland on 15-16 May. Big thanks to Auckland Handball for making this happen.
On the NZHF admin front, two key initiatives to update you on.
First, the proposed changes to the NZHF constitution were circulated last month for feedback before we finalise the final set of changes to put to a SGM before the end of June. If you haven’t already done so, please take the opportunity to have a look, and let us know whether you think we haven’t got any of the changes right or think we have missed something – or let us know if you are happy with what we have come up with!
Second, we made a bit of noise about finally gaining formal recognition by Sport NZ at the end of 2020. One of the opportunities this opened up for us was the ability to team up with the TAB, providing us with a new platform to promote the game of handball to a new set of enthusiasts and further grow the sport. A spin-off from that connection is that we have benefitted from some of the revenue generated from the first couple of months of the arrangement to the tune of a bit over $2,000. That’s more funds available to us to plough back into growing the sport. Exciting times.
That’s it for now. There’s plenty happening, and plenty to look forward to over the next few months as the season swings into top gear. Get into it!
Stay safe
David Ireland
President NZHF