In October, Netball Northern held the third of its Centre Connect Series for the year, in both Te Tai Tokerau and Auckland. This three-part series has brought together netball centres, encouraging collaboration, idea-sharing, and support among centres to grow and strengthen netball in the Northern Zone.
Covering a range of topics
This session covered a range of topics including collaboration among centres, the Voice of Participant survey, and the strategic direction for both Netball NZ and Netball Northern next year. Additionally, during the Auckland session, there was a focus on secondary school participation, where attendees worked together on ideas around creating positive opportunities and experiences for young players.
Centre Collaboration
Centre collaboration was the key focus for the October session, with centres discussing and identifying ways to work more effectively together and to connect regularly.
Northland centres suggested starting with regular monthly online hui, with the first taking place on the 3rd Tuesday of the month, focused on calendar planning, season start and finish dates, tournament and workshop dates.
The Auckland area centres suggested regular connections with focused topics (such as umpiring/coaching etc) where they can share knowledge and hear from specialists. They also suggested having focus groups to work on projects that will impact all netball.
Future operational plans
During the session attendees also heard from the Netball Northern programme leads on the key areas of priority within Netball NZ and Netball Northern operations plans - including a focus around umpire coach development with formal and informal opportunities, a coaching digital record of learning, new resources for NetballSmart as well as Northern’s netball Good Sports project.
Centre Connect next year
Those who attended say they have found the Centre Connect Series a valuable part of the year in staying connected with other centres. Based on the feedback, Netball Northern will be running the series again in 2025 and will continue to work to grow the value of these sessions.
