Annual Report 2019

MESSAGE
from our Chair and CEO
Tena Koutou Katoa, Talofa lava, Namaste and Welcome.
It is with great pleasure that we present our 27th Annual Report to our stakeholders. Reflecting on a very busy year we are proud
to highlight that our work has impacted on some 36,000 Aucklanders and that we remain committed to our purpose of inspiring
our communities to live active healthy lives.
Both our community sport and our health and wellness work remains focussed on helping to address the issues that face many
Aucklanders today – a rise in physical inactivity, obesity, mental health issues, inequities to be able to participate in physical
activity, sport and active recreation and the genuine lack of enough spaces and places for Aucklanders to take part in active
recreation and sport. To address all these issues and find solutions requires genuine visionary leadership and the conviction to
embrace new ways of doing things.
Interestingly in February of this year the North Harbour Rugby Union (NHRU) made a significantly bold move to disband its
under 14 representative team. It also expanded the non-contact Rippa version of rugby to allow kids aged up to 13 to play this
format. The decision demonstrated visionary leadership. It showed a conviction to do something new, but created a furore
up and down the country. The move was applauded by Sport New Zealand and their Sport Development Consultant, Alex
Chiet, gave his reasoning as to why he backed the decision based on not specialising at an early age. NHRU were responding
to and listening to what the kids wanted to do. To address the inequities of being able to participate in sport and to avoid the
detrimental factors that can be associated with kids being asked to specialise at such an early age, they chose to be bold and
different. They chose to modify their offerings and to bring the fun element back to their sport.
In his introduction in his book “Range – Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”, David Epstein paints for us the two
different routes that Tiger Woods and Roger Federer took to get to the top. Tiger Woods first held a putter in his hands at age
seven months. We all know his sporting story from that moment on. Roger Federer as he grew up was “a kid who loved to play”.
And play he did – basketball, hand ball, tennis, table tennis, badminton, soccer, swimming, skateboarding, wrestling, skiing. He
did not specialise in tennis until well into his teens and even then asked to be kept back a grade so he could play with his mates.
It is a good read. While neither path is wrong, we do have the statistics and evidential data that suggests that kids want to have
fun; they want to try all sorts of opportunities and they want to play with their mates. Many who do not make various early
representative grades give up on participation. But the message for Mum and Dad is that for many kids they can still succeed
without that early specialisation. And perhaps they may become more rounded individuals, develop more skill sets and have a
life-long love for sport and active recreation. Which is exactly what we would love to see happen.
Taking the World Health Organisation guidelines into consideration and the projected growth population in Auckland, it is a
sobering thought that by 2040 we could have some 1.5 million Aucklanders who will be either inactive or not doing enough
physical activity to be able to lead healthy active lifestyles.
So what can we do to either reverse or mitigate such trends. We know we cannot do any of our work in isolation. We need to
embrace more bold decision making such as the likes of the NHRU. So our success in our sector to reverse trends, embrace bold
visionary decision making, disrupt historical thinking and change behaviours comes down to partnering and collaborating
with other likeminded organisations and funders who share our vision that our communities can lead healthy active lifestyles
Annual report
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