KIA ORA KOUTOU, AOTEAROA HANDBALL WHĀNAU!
It’s the middle of May already, and after another successful summer of beach Handball the focus is now squarely on the traditional indoor game, with lots of local and international play in store.
I regret that there has been a bigger gap than usual between drinks for NZ Handball President’s updates. Hopefully that has just left our readers thirsty for more! The reason for that gap is we have been working hard on a couple of fairly major initiatives. These have taken longer to come to fruition than we had hoped, but now we finally have something confirmed to report.
NZ Handball Statement of Strategic Direction
Thanks to all those who responded to our February survey seeking feedback on how we can best deliver on our core purpose of growing New Zealand Handball to its full potential. Thanks also to Sport NZ for its input, and the generous contribution of ideas from a number of other sports bodies and organisations.
We duly crunched through all the feedback received at a special weekend meeting of the Executive Committee in early March (big thanks to Executive Committee member Leanne for driving the process for us, and to Dentons’ Wellington office for providing the office space and facilitating our meeting) and have spent the past couple of months refining the output from that into a form we can share.
What really came through strongly from the feedback was the sense of community and people wanting to contribute to help grow New Zealand Handball, but needing a bit of direction, clarity and support to make that happen. Hopefully the now finalised Statement of Strategic Direction we have adopted will itch that scratch.
Nothing will change as far as the vision, values and purpose of New Zealand Handball is concerned. What will be changing is the approach to turning the vision of Handball being a game for everyone, everywhere, into a reality. Rather than trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once (as we have been prone to do!) the strategic focus will be on growing participation. To do that we need strong clubs, engaged volunteers, clear pathways for everyone involved, and great competitions where we can all come together and celebrate the joy of Handball. That doesn’t mean the strategic direction ignores high performance – far from it. Instead, the strategic view is that sustainable high performance can only occur if we have a solid participation base for that to feed off, and high performance Handball is an integral part of the participation plan.
We have translated our core values into a set of guiding principles, and fleshed out the four strategic pillars on which a sustainable future for New Zealand Handball can be built. These pillars are participation, pathways, clubs and leadership. We have identified some key enablers we need to have in place to make the magic happen, and committed to a few strategic disciplines to keep us on track. That means some hard calls may need to be made as we look to better focus our limited resources, but they will be calls that should ultimately see New Zealand Handball in a better place than it would otherwise be.
We think this is a critical step in the New Zealand Handball Federation journey. To hear more about the Statement of Strategic Direction, Jun has pulled together a set of presentation slides you can access on the SSD page, narrated by our multi-talented Secretary-General, Rowan. If that is all too much for you, you can access a one-pager summary of the SSD.
While the headline documentation for our Strategic Direction has been finalised, we are always open to feedback, queries and ideas as to how we can best implement things – and of course, to offers of help to make it all happen!
Oceania IHF Trophy for Senior Women and Club Champs
The other key initiative we have been working hard to make happen is the Oceania leg of the inaugural IHF Nations Trophy for senior women. The IHF Trophy concept itself has long been a feature of our high-performance programme at the youth and junior levels, with past highlights including the New Zealand female juniors winning the Oceania qualifiers back in 2014 to earn the right to represent Oceania at the Intercontinental Championship for developing nations in Bulgaria, and our youth men repeating the feat in 2017 to head to Kosovo. On 31 March the International Handball Federation announced the IHF Trophy concept was finally being extended to the senior level, providing opportunity for those who have graduated from the junior ranks to take on Oceania and the World. This inaugural round is for women, with men to follow next year.
Following on from the success of New Zealand hosting the Oceania Beach Handball Championships over Waitangi Weekend, we were invited by the IHF to host the Oceania leg of this new international Handball initiative. With thanks to the support of the Oceania Continent Handball Federation our hosting of the event has been confirmed, and it will be held in Wellington alongside our Club Champs, throwing off on Thursday 10 September and concluding on Monday 14 September.
At the time of drafting this update the IHF had yet to send our fellow Oceania nations the official invitations to take part so we don’t know for sure who we will be up against, but it is fantastic to finally have a recognised international fixture for our high performing women. The winner of the Oceania leg will be supported by the IHF to take part in the next Asian Championships.
Running the IHF Nations Trophy event alongside the Club Champs will of course create some logistical challenges – but also allows us to generate some synergies and means the rest of the New Zealand Handball community will have added reason to be on the spot to witness this historic event. In recognition of the fact that New Zealand’s finest will be committed to the New Zealand team and excluded from being able to represent their Clubs – with the same constraint impacting on any of our Club Handball Whānau joining us from outside the motu – the Club Champs becomes an Open Championship this year with the Women’s division having a social/developmental focus.
The changes with this year’s Championships don’t stop there. We are hoping to have the numbers to run a two-tier competition for the Men for this year’s Open Club Championship, with a high-performance competitive division competing for the cup, and a 2nd social/development division to cater for those on a different pathway. For all, the Club competition will throw off from 4.30pm on Thursday 10 February with the final women’s division game provisionally set for 1pm on Sunday 13th and the men’s top tier final provisionally set for 3pm that day (all ties to be confirmed, depending on entries).
So how is hosting an IHF Nations Trophy event consistent with the new Strategic Direction? Easy. For years we have been crying out for a clear pathway for our female athletes, and provide them with a genuine opportunity to compete on the international stage. Hosting a showcase Oceania event in Wellington, hopefully in front of packed stands, delivers on that objective to inspire the next generation to get amongst it. Running social/development divisions alongside the high-performance games for the Club Open Championships opens up opportunities for all to take part. It is going to be huge, and we hope to get a great turnout from the New Zealand Handball community to celebrate the occasion.
HLA opening weekend & Junior Women’s Trans-Tasman Cup
Before we get too carried away salivating at the prospect of the inaugural Oceania leg of the IHF Nations Trophy on home soil and the NZ Club Open Champs, just around the corner we have the first round of Handball League Aotearoa throwing off at The Peak in Kirikiriroa Hamilton on 23 May. And the weekend won’t just be about provincial rivalry, with the inaugural Trans-Tasman Junior Women’s Handball Cup on the line.
Congratulations to Karl ‘Ted’ Fitzpatrick and the team for making this happen, with a special shout out to Jill James for her initiatives in initiating the conversation and driving the idea of a Trans-Tasman tournament forward, and Handball Australia’s Karolina Pereira for the role she played in driving it from the West Island It is tremendous to be able to welcome friends from across the ditch to take part in the first of what we hope will be a long sequence of clashes, strengthening the international pathways for junior women from both sides of the Tasman and fostering that great ANZAC rivalry. Go to our Trans-Tasman Junior Women’s Handball Cup event for more details.
As always, all games will be livestreamed on the NZ Handball Live YouTube channel.
That’s it for this month’s update. Best wishes to those taking part in Hamilton this month, and safe travels to all those attending.
Yours in Handball
David Ireland
President, New Zealand Handball Federation