Kia ora Koutou Katoa e te Whānau Handball,
The beach season is fast approaching! This is an extremely important season for beach handball, and the NZHF want to share our plans as early as possible, even if all details are not yet finalised.
Due to qualifiers being held this season for the world championships, our intention is to start early so that we can select the strongest squad possible and give that squad time to gel before taking on our Oceania cousins for the right to participate in the world championship.
The first 2 camps will be spread over the North and South Island and will be open to all interested parties to allow maximum participation. Then a selection camp will take place this side of Christmas allowing for a squad to be selected and have at least one training camp before the Qualifying event.
The INDICATIVE dates are included below. These are indicative only and subject to change given the tight timeframes, particularly around the first camp which is still in the tail end of the indoor season.
The NZHF has put their hand’s up to host the Oceania Qualifiers this year and have indicated we wish to host them on the 30th of Jan till the 1st of February Which will give the winning team ample time to prepare for the World Championships and we will align our calendar with both our Club Championship the week after to entice our Oceania Whānau to come over and enjoy what Aotearoa has to offer. We have worked in with our Handball Australia to ensure that players wishing to attend both club championship events and allowed enough spacing for this.
So that we hit the sand running we will be running a Beach Handball High Performance meeting to discuss player and management expectations, timing of camps and tournaments as well as team culture. TO SIGN UP FOR THIS MEETING PLEASE CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW. This is an open meeting available to anyone interested in playing for New Zealand Beach Handball.
This is going to be a busy season full of change so expect further communications, such as the staple of our NZ High Performance Beach Calendar, the North vs South Series, as well as some great opportunities to get involved in the beach handball community.
If you want any further information on the beach programme please reach out to beach@handball.org.nz. It’s going to be an exciting year ahead for Beach Handball!
Looking forward to seeing you all out on the sand soon,
Ngā mihi nui
Willy Silcock
NZHF Executive Board Member (Beach Handball Portfolio)
