Netball Northern Zone Map CONTENTS From the Chair and CEO 4 Commercial Partners 6 Community Netball 7 Performance 13 SKYCITY Mystics 16 Results Northern Zone 20 Financials 21 From the CEO & Chair It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 2015 Annual Report of the Netball Northern Zone. It has been another satisfying year with progress being shown in all aspects of the work we are involved in, from ANZ FutureFerns through to high performance (SKYCITY Mystics) . Netball New Zealand and the five Zones continued to refine our organization’s role and purpose through- out the year. We all have a very high commitment to alignment with the national Whole of Netball plan and linking closely with Netball NZ’s strategies. Targets were set by Netball New Zealand in consultation with each of the zones and focused largely on increasing player participation as well as coach and umpire numbers. We were successful in some areas, but also recognized that targets in some other areas were not realistic, so were able to review these number for the 2016 season. The CEO’s of the Zone and Netball New Zealand continue to have regular meetings as do the Community and Performance team nationally. National Chair meetings are also held twice per annum, usually alongside the CEO meeting. It was a good outcome for the Coach Development role to transition from Netball New Zealand into the Zones earlier this year. We now have very clear lines of accountability for outcomes in this area and we were fortunate to be able to secure Tania Heap with such a wealth of experience in coach development. We are sure to see even better results in 2016 with Tania having the benefit of a full year to work within, but also having built strong relationships with all of the centres across the zone throughout 2015. Umpire development has also been a real strength within our zone also and so it was with disappointment but also understanding that we accepted Jan Skilton’s resignation at the end of 2015. Jan will continue to work on a part-time basis until March 2016. It was once again a lovely occasion to watch the Netball NZ Service award recipients at the National AGM in February — congratulations to Therese Dixon, Rayna Gunson and Aileen Mason. Therese also won the New World volunteer of the Year award, again well deserved. Congratulations also goes to Auckland Netball Centre for winning the National U17 tournament, Netball North Harbour won the National U19 tournament and the Netball Northern Zone won the National U23 tournament— very strong results for our Zone, and bodes very well for the future of the players coming from our zone. This was the final year for the U23 tournament and Lion Foundation, both to be replaced by the Beko National League. The League is a very important step required to start preparing our athletes for a higher level of competition, and a considerable amount of planning has happened to get this League underway for 2016. Financial and time pressure has been placed on everyone involved to ensure it’s suc- cess, but all involved agreed it was necessary to implement it in 2016. 2015 has seen the establishment of the Regional Netball Facilities working group, and progress has been made on prioritizing the greatest areas of need for council funding support to enable growth of our sport. Facilities are also high on the agenda for the Auckland Sport Coalition which Julie was appointed to this year, as well as being appointed to the Northland Sport Coalition. Both of these groups are primarily 4 advocacy groups focusing on representing sport’s voice in the Council’s Unitary and other plans, as well as oth- er Auckland or Northland-wide sporting issues. It is important that netball is represented in both groups. Julie was also fortunate to be selected to attend a five week programme in America run by the US State De- partment, focusing on developing women leaders in sport. She has returned refreshed and with a strategy in mind to work together with other like-minded people to advocate for an increase in the profile and balance of women both participating and administering sport. The SKYCITY Mystics continue to improve in performance both on and off the court, moving from 7th place in 2014 to a credible fourth in 2015. 2015 was also the first year the Mystics have completed the round-robin series unbeaten against all NZ teams. With SKYCITY announcing their principle sponsorship in February, finan- cial pressure was eased and the players and management team were fortunate to be hosted by SKYCITY prior to each of our home games, so our ability to team-build and prepare consistently for all games also increased. Our continued thanks go to Debbie Fuller, Head Coach and Noeline Taurua, specialist coach for the 2015 sea- son. Thanks also to the management team of Chris Tennant, Sharon Choie and Sam Purvin—all who put in many many hours to support our team. There are a number of additional support staff who also work tireless- ly to ensure the best support is provided for the team. We do however continue to find it extremely difficult to find businesses who are prepared to step away from traditional sponsorship support, even with a business proposition as strong as we have in netball with broad- cast opportunities as well as a massive participation base and audience. Our continued thanks go to Barfoot and Thompson for another fantastic year supporting our team. Thanks also to new sponsors Vitasport, and Crowe Horwath, as well as The Hits, West City Holden, The Trusts and the Trusts Arena, Auckland Council, and Benefitz as well as our many player sponsors and match day sponsors. We have also had very generous support from Gaming Trusts and thanks go to the NZ Community Trust, The Trusts Charitable Foundation, Lion Foundation, North and South Trust, Infinity Foundation and Southern Trust. We have also established strong working relationships with the various RSTs in our Zone. We would also like to thank the staff of the Netball Northern Zone - all dedicated, hardworking and very com- mitted people. Special welcome to Tia Winikerei who began her role as Community Netball Manager and has transitioned very well into her role. We welcomed back Tania Heap. We said goodbye to Jill Clapcott who re- signed from her role at the Zone as event and finance manager to take on other netball managerial roles, and also a semi-goodbye to Anne Nicholson at the end of her fixed term contract. Anne has now been contracted back to assist in the roll-out of the Year 5-6 pilot. Thanks also to our board - again dedicated and committed people who really work hard for the best for netball in our Zone. Special thanks to everyone for your on-going support and knowledge and understanding of the role of the Zone in our delivery system. We welcomed Diana Puketapu and Lynette Gubb who both joined the board early in 2015 and have both been strong contributors to our board. Finally our greatest thanks goes to the 17 Netball Centres in our Zone— without whom none of the above would be possible. The connection, communication and understanding we have with the centres continues to grow every year and we look forward to another year of working with you all. We wish you all the best for the upcoming season. Julie Paterson, CEO and Dianne McAteer, Chair 5 Commercial Partners Principal Sponsor Major Sponsors Associate Sponsors Supporting sponsors Player sponsors Community Partners 6 Community Netball As the Community Team reflect on 2015, we can confidently say that we have made good progress with the implementation of Netball New Zealand’s and our own Zone Community Netball Strategy. We welcomed Tia Winikerei as the new Community Netball Manager and Tania Heap as the first Zone Coach Development Officer. We said farewell to Anne Nicholson as our full-time Junior Development Officer when we were unsuccessful in obtaining further Kiwisport funding to continue with this role, alt- hough we have managed to retain Anne’s expertise in a part–time capacity for 2016 and Anne will lead the ANZ futureFERNs Year 5 (6v6 game format) pilot. In March we say goodbye to our Umpire Development Officer, Jan Skilton. Jan has contributed to Netball in numerous ways over many years, leading umpire development in the Zone since 2013. Jan’s dedication and love for Netball is second to none. She will be sadly missed. Thank you to all Northern Zone Netball Centres and satellite playing venues for your enthusiasm, comittment and support for the work the Community Team do. Centre Forum The Zone Centre Forum was held in September at the Sky City Convention Centre. All Northern Zone net- ball centres were represented during the two-day conference. This is an important meeting as it enables us to discuss and share information relevant to the delivery of Netball. It also allows us to celebrate our Netball successes as a Zone. NNZ communicated their new brand messaging of “We live this Game’”, provided an update on the development of the High Performance Strategy, and noted the key successes of the implementation of ANZ futureFERNs and Coach Development in our Zone. We were also very for- tunate to have two guest speakers: Sponsorship and Marketing specialist Jane Bennett from Hansells Food Group and Dr Craig Harrison, Director of Athlete Development AUT Millennium. Jane delivered a presentation on marketing and sponsorship from the viewpoint of the customer. She touched on the necessities of getting an insight to your customer, what to look for when reviewing your sponsorship opportunities, the importance of knowing your competition and understanding and valuing your product.