News
Message from our Board Chairperson - Sally Kerr. We would like your thoughts for the upcoming season!
Kia Ora Koutou,
On May 1st at 10am there is a Mid-Winter forum focusing on tamariki and rangatahi run by the AWBOP Children’s Committee.
Athletics Waikato Bay of Plenty membership is dominated by U18s, and we want to be providing coaching, clubs and events that interest and develop our members.
The past season was a challenging one, especially for those in the central Waikato who lost the early part of the season, and for volunteers who were dealing with COVID fatigue not only in sport but at home and in the workplace.
The Board, AWBOP Centre and Children’s Committee want to thank clubs who kept on going during this time and delivered athletics to their members despite the challenges. We heard of inspiring clubs across the region who adapted and ran interclub events, innovative club night events and most importantly, kept tamariki being active.
Fortunately, some events were able to go ahead:
- Open Meets for 13 yrs and upwards were held from December and the U16/U18 athletes competed in the Interprovincials virtually
- AWBOP and NZ Track and Field Champs went ahead
- Cambridge Athletic Club held a Pentathlon event in February on a glorious sunny day
- AWBOP Centre put on a coaching and competition event for our 12/13 athletes with high performance coaching in hurdles, discus, and high jump
- The North Island and South Island Colgate Games went ahead with many of our athletes travelling to Wellington and Invercargill to compete.
Sadly, the secondary schools’ events did not go ahead, the timing with the Omicron surge was very challenging. And our Children’s Champs and Relay Champs were also cancelled due to the numbers involved. These events were a big loss to our calendar, and I know caused disappointment to many athletes and their whanau.
Looking forward to this winter and the upcoming summer, we want to make sure we are supporting our younger members and have moved our Tu Manawa funded events through to winter so watch out for Athletics Events on the beach, in the forest, and nearby to you.
But we also want to hear what you want, and we need people to step up and support the existing volunteers. Bring your ideas to the table – things to think about:
- What can the Centre be doing to support your club?
- How can we deliver events that appeal to children and teenagers?
- Can we coordinate better between school and club programmes?
- Would you be interested in becoming a community coach or an official and can we support you to do so?
- Would you join this group to offer your support to hold events like the Children’s Champs or the Relay Champs?
The Board wants to thank the club leaders, coaches, officials, and people that made these events happen. Louise Young, Dianne Rodger, Teresa Mumby, Cambridge Athletic Club, Robin Knowles (Manager 16/18 IP Team) plus his support team, Criss Strange, Kevin Bradley and Ashleigh Sando all played a part in getting some events happening in a very strange and hard summer.
Nga Mihi
Sally Kerr
Chairperson of the Board
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