In May 2019, 160 sports leaders from around New Zealand gathered at a networking Hui with the aim of collaborating for the benefit of youth participants across codes.
Sport is a fundamental part of New Zealand’s culture. For a country of just 4.7 million people we have a proud history in sport internationally. Whether it’s the magnificent history of the All Blacks, the famous success of athletes like Dame Valerie Adams or Rob Waddell at Olympic and Commonwealth Games, or surprising tournament efforts from teams like the New Zealand U17 Women’s Football team in the 2018 World Cup, Kiwis have a strong and proud history of performing on the world stage.
However, beneath the performance narrative lies a complex landscape with young children around New Zealand engaging in many sports throughout their childhoods. Youth participation in sport is high in New Zealand, and driving these sports are various governing bodies in the form of national and regional sports organisations, school sports bodies and regional sports trusts.
With so many sports on offer to young Kiwis, and a degree of competition between codes for the attention of youth participants, collaboration has become a critical ingredient as youth sport moves into the future.
Recently, the Sport New Zealand Development Team facilitated a workshop (Hui) around the theme “Balance is Better in youth sport”. This involved 160 sports leaders and administrators from a variety of codes and backgrounds, coming together from around the country for a day of learning and sharing.
The key objectives for the day were to bring Sport New Zealand’s key partners together to discuss good practice and learn from various sporting codes. The morning was facilitated by Brendan Spillane, a highly regarded Australian educator and international coach.
In the video below, Brendan discusses why New Zealand potentially has a competitive advantage over other countries and outlines some of the big challenges in youth sport, while highlighting some of the good work that has gone on.
As Brendan suggests, it’s clear that New Zealand’s natural advantage is that we are open as a country to collaboration. With a small population we can pivot quickly, and with organisations willing to talk and implement positive change, perhaps this gives us a competitive edge when it comes to being innovative in the youth sporting space.
As the hui progressed, case studies were shared by New Zealand Cricket, North Harbour Rugby and Sport Northland, all with the aim of collaboration being critical to youth sport continuing to evolve and develop to ensure the experience of players comes first.
See the video below for some insight from Bill Wigglesworth (North Harbour Rugby), Anna Markwick (Sport Northland) and Richard Pithey (New Zealand Cricket) as to what kind of changes have been going on across their respective codes and sporting organisations.
Image Credit: Perry Grone