Tēnā koutou, Aotearoa Handball Whānau!
End of May, and the Indoor Handball season is now in full swing. And now less than two months until the Paris Olympics, providing a rare opportunity (hopefully!) for international Handball to appear on mainstream Kiwi sports media. More on that in the lead up to the Games, but for now, let’s focus a little closer to home.
Handball League AotearoA is go!
What a fantastic weekend of high performance handball to kick off Handball League Aotearoa at the start of May!
With the scramble to get the opening round together it would be fair to say we were a tad nervous about how it would pan out – but we couldn’t have been happier with the outcome. Eight high quality games played with real intensity, and all four of our regions represented by full(ish) strength male and female teams with a great turnout of volunteers and supporters. Good to see our Women’s National Training Squad taking the opportunity presented by having everyone in one place to hold a training session.
After the opening round we had Auckland Women and Otago Men leading the standings – but it’s early days with plenty more points up for grabs in the months ahead.
Auckland HC Women’s team
Massive thanks to Canterbury Handball for managing the logistics and to Ted & the HLA organising group for pulling it all together. Thanks also to those who completed the HLA stakeholder survey – we will be digesting the outputs of that over the coming weeks and then let you know what we’ve learned and how that impacts on the way we administer the League.
Next up for HLA we have the intra-island clashes, with Auckland taking on Wellington and Canterbury taking on Otago, and a hard-fought first leg of the Southern Shield having been held in Waimate on 25 May.
Auckland Open & Auckland Youth
Moving away from official High-Performance Handball and with more focus on the social side of Handball, but without any drop in passion for our great game on Court, the Auckland Open is all set for the weekend of 8-9 June. Another opportunity for our community to get together to celebrate all that is good about Handball, with thanks to Auckland Handball for all their efforts in ensuring this event remains an annual highlight on the Handball calendar.
Perhaps even more exciting than the Auckland Open (if that is possible!) is the launch of an Intermediate age inter-school tournament in Auckland next month. We have a Boys’ tournament taking place on 7 June (think of it as a form of warm up event for the Auckland Open) and then a girls’ tournament on 21 June (with a big thank you to Balmoral School for hosting that). We are super excited about this new investment in the future of Handball, and hoping to replicate the experience in other centres around the country. Huge effort by Frank and his volunteer group to make that happen. For more details, reach out to play@handball.org.nz
Club and Player register
Hopefully all our affiliated Clubs will have now seen and responded to the survey sent out earlier this month for Clubs to confirm their registration details with us, as well as provide updated players’ details to ensure they are correctly recorded on our database. A lot of effort has been put into developing a new NZHF registration system that will work for our environment, but that system will only work if all our stakeholders respond and ensure we have a proper record of everyone involved. Thanks in anticipation of your co-operation with this important initiative.
An update will be provided later in the year. For any queries on our database in the meantime, please reach out to Julien at membership@handball.org.nz
Exec update
Last up for this month, a slight changing of the guard on your Exec. With a brand new Handballer scheduled to enter the world in a couple of months, Rowan has decided to step aside from Secretary-General duties to focus on her next big role. I am delighted to announce that Kylie Carter (KC) has agreed to step into the gap and take on the duties of acting Secretary-General for the NZHF until this year’s AGM. Rowan and KC will be working together to ensure a smooth transition.
Thanks for all you have done for New Zealand Handball as our Secretary-General, Rowan, and we look forward to welcoming you back on Court with your expanded whānau in tow real soon!
Yours in Handball
David Ireland
President, New Zealand Handball Federation