Happy International Handball Week!
I am penning this after just participating in a Zoom meeting with representatives from the international handball community from around the world as we celebrate 75 years of the IHF. It’s quite something for little ol’ New Zealand with our tiny handball community to experience the global behemoth that is the IHF in action! Good news for our youth players, the IHF Challenge Trophy will be recommencing just as soon as COVID allows, with a commitment to resume the usual programme.
For those who haven’t seen it, the link below takes you to our youth-focused contribution to the 75th anniversary celebration that was shared with the IHF at the start of the week – thanks to our Regions who provided the content and to the tireless Jun for collating it all:
NZ Handball also features in the Asian Handball Federation’s posting to celebrate the week. That’s quite a coup for us, since we are officially part of the Oceania Region and only get to participate in AHF events by invitation. See the video link below (we come into it a minute or so in):
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialAhf/videos/513468559871455
Closer to home, we have had some constructive conversations with Handball Australia to come up with some initiatives to work more closely with them, given the challenges we face getting international competition in a COVID world. And as part of the Oceania Continental Handball Federation, we are hopeful of connecting with our Pasifika neighbours to get some handball action going with them as well as border restrictions hopefully start to open up. Sadly, there’s a fair way to go before we are out of the woods.
Super-excited about the handball programme locked in for the next three months, on top of all the great work going on under the umbrella of the Regional Associations:
Under 19 Regionals in Auckland 28-29 August
Wellington Handball Federation’s Club League finals 5 September
National Club Champs in Wellington 10-12 September
Men’s National Team playing an invitation selection as part of the Ashburton Festival 25 September
Youth Handball Camp in Wellington 2-3 October
Regional Handball Champs in Christchurch 9-10 October
Of course, there is also a wee sporting competition going on in Tokyo over the next couple of weeks, providing one of the few times when international handball gets to enjoy some coverage on mainstream New Zealand TV. We will post details of when games are happening and where you can get to view them once that is known.
And if that isn’t enough to get the handball juices flowing, in the midst of all that we have my personal favourite, the NZHF AGM on 11 September. That will be hosted in Wellington, but with online participation possible as a result of the constitutional changes approved in May. More details to follow closer to the time. It’s all go!
On the admin front we are in the final stages of inking a couple of important partner support agreements that I will update you on in next month’s update. We have just taken delivery of a flash set of kit for the Men’s and Women’s National Team that our High Performance representatives will hopefully get a chance to show off on court later in the year, and are awaiting the first supply of handballs funded through our relationship with the TAB. At our last meeting we also signed off on our Complaints Policy and High Performance Selection Mission Statement & Policy, as well as confirmed our earlier update to the Anti-Match Fixing & Sports Betting Policy. You can find all these, along with the updated constitution and strategic plan for NZHF, at www.handball.org.nz
As always, if you have any feedback or handball initiatives to share, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
David Ireland
President, New Zealand Handball Federation