Kia ora koutou, New Zealand Handball community!
This month’s President’s update comes hot on the heels of the Olympics wrapping up with an historic French double. Some fantastic handball played over the course of the fortnight, with a personal highlight for me seeing Bahrain – a team the NZ Men’s Team played against just 18 months before the games at the Asian Champs in Kuwait – make it to the quarterfinals.
Hopefully you were able to catch some of the Olympics handball action on the small screen. The mainstream coverage of our great sport was a tad underwhelming, tbh – with the exposure we had hoped for not helped by the threat of legal action suppressing efforts to promote the games and encourage supporters to get amongst it. Disappointing, but it is what it was. As far as I can make out we haven’t breached any Olympic name protections in this update, but a big shout out to the Regional Associations and Clubs who made an effort to generate some local excitement for a tournament none of us were able to catch in person, with some great handball-focused events held around the country.
We can now focus on the handball action closer to home. It is an action-packed couple of months coming up, even if the border closures and bursting of the Trans-Tasman bubble have stymied plans for any international competition this year.
Before we get to that, the big news on the NZHF admin front is that we have formalised support from online learning provider International Centre for Quality Pioneers (ICQP). ICQP first demonstrated its support for New Zealand handball by sponsoring the New Zealand Men’s Team’s Asian Handball Champs campaign in January 2021. It has now come through to fully fund two full sets of playing kit for each of our Men’s and Women’s rep teams, including all screen printing. It’s a generous package, and ensures we will be able to turn out a professional looking NZ rep team whenever required, without adding uniform costs to the financial burden those taking part would otherwise need to bear, and without digging a massive hole in our finances. So a massive NZ handball thank you to ICQP!
And hot off the press, the IHF has just promised us a bit over USD5,000 worth of Molten handballs, that are now winging their way to us. They won’t arrive in time for Club Champs, but it’s an awesome supply to have on hand to kick off NZ handball in 2022.
News of other support we have been able to secure will be covered in next month’s update. On the giving side of the equation, we have dipped into the TAB-funded Development Fund to purchase a supply of junior handballs, subsidise court hire for junior regional champs and travel costs for the Otago management team to get there, and helped fund court hire for the Canterbury Quake’s Term 3 and 4 junior handball programme.
Reminder of the schedule to take us through to mid-October:
August 28-29 U19 Men’s Regional Champs in Auckland
September 5 Wellington Club League finals, run by Wellington Handball Federation
September 10-12 National Club Champs, Wellington
September 11 NZHF AGM, Wellington
September 25 NZ Men’s Team exhibition game v a South Island Barbarians selection, Ashburton
October 2 South Island Shield Game Three, Waimate
October 2-3 National junior youth camp, Wellington
October 9-10 Regional Champs, Christchurch
Phew! Now nestled amongst all the handball action is the AGM. The agenda for this will be circulated later in the month, but for now the key deadline for those interested is the closing date for nominations for election to the Executive Committee. There’s no set form for nominations – they just need to be signed on behalf of a financially up-to-date Club or Life Member making the nomination, countersigned by the nominee wanting to be considered, and submitted to NZHF no later than 27 August.
Your Federation needs volunteers with the commitment and energy to join the Committee to help us build on current initiatives, and move the organisation forward. Have YOU got what it takes? Please feel free to contact any of the current Executive Committee members if you are interested and want to find out more about what is involved.
That will do for this month. There is a truckload of heavy admin lifting going on behind the scenes at present to make all the above happen, with some much appreciated support and independently run initiatives coming from our Regional Associations and Club stalwarts. Seeing it all come together on Court is a great reward for all that mahi, and we look forward to seeing our wonderful handball community in action over the weeks ahead. Even if you aren’t taking part on court, hopefully the geographic spread of activities will provide opportunity for all our supporters to catch some of that action.
Nga mihi,
David Ireland
President, New Zealand Handball Federation