BADMINTON OCEANIA UPDATE Tuesday 22 September 2015

To: All Oceania Member Associations

It is a busy time of the year with 2015 activities in full swing and planning for 2016 well underway

Nadia and I are just back from the annual Continental Workshops conducted by the BWF where we were presented with the draft BWF strategic plan 2016-2020 with some very good discussions around these.

Schedule A - BWF BWF has distributed this directly to all MA’s. Can you please ensure you complete and return to BWF by due date – 30 September. It would be appreciated if you can please cc myself and Nadia into the email when submitting so we can also collate details and ensure all our members submit. Please be aware that it is very important this is submitted on time, as this ensures that you will receive funding to the BWF AGM. Please be as accurate as possible when submitting the numbers of players (both registered and playing) as this is important information for both BWF and ourselves.

Oceania Events Four international events in the region in September: Victor Australian Junior International, Auckland International, Victor Maribyrnong International and the Sydney International. To check out the results from these events click the links below: Victor Australian Junior International Auckland International Victor Maribyrnong International Sydney International

The New Caledonia International is 28-31 October; entries close Tuesday 29 September

Thank you to everyone involved with making these events happen. It is good to see a number of players from outside our region playing our events and having a positive experience

2016 Events The Oceania Team Championships, which includes a mixed team followed by the Men’s and Women’s team Championships; are being played at North Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand

Oceania Mixed Team Championships – Tuesday 16 – Thursday 18 February 5 matches per tie– ie. one of each discipline. Minimum 2 men and 2 women required Members may enter more than one team

Oceania Men’s and Women’s Team Championships: Friday 19 – Sunday 20 February The winners of each section qualify for the TOTAL Thomas & finals in China in May 2016. 5 matches per tie – 3 x singles, 2 x doubles. A player may play a maximum of 1 singles and 1 doubles match in a tie meaning a team requires a minimum of 4 players

Further details of both events will be available within the next 3-4 weeks. We will require an indication of entries by the beginning of November There will also be some additional workshops and training courses held in conjunction with these events

Tahiti International – 19-24 April followed by the Oceania Championships (individual events) 25-28 April Two tournaments in the one venue, right at the end of the Olympic qualifying period

BWF Level 4 Events – 2016 We need to have the sanction for any events after 1 May 2016 into the BWF by the beginning of November. Can Members who are planning events please contact me to discuss suitable dates and linking with each other.

Planning There are a number of events in the next 2-3 years which should be included in each member Association’s Plans:

2016: World Junior Championships – Spain, October 2017: – Gold Coast Australia, May 2017: World Junior Championships – October. 2018: Commonwealth Games – Gold Coast, Australia, April

BWF AGM The 2016 BWF AGM is in conjunction with the Thomas & Uber Cup finals in Kunshan, China. The AGM is on Saturday 21 May. I hope all Member Association’s will be represented at the BWF AGM – BWF fund one person from each country to attend – providing that Schedule A was submitted by 30 September 2015 We are planning to hold a half day Oceania meeting for all Member Association’s prior to the AGM, more information regarding day and time will be available early in the new year.

Oceania AGM 2016 This will be held in conjunction with the Oceania Team Championships at North Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand in February. More information will be distributed within the next few weeks

News Stories Please continue to post news stories and photos on your websites and Facebook pages telling us what badminton activities are happening in your country so we can share with others. Please #oceaniabadminton and #bwfbadminton where appropriate. Hash Tags (#) provide a direct link to stories and photos with the same #. You can click on the # to see all these photos and stories in that link. Photos are gold – “a picture paints a thousand words”

Shuttle Time Update If you capture a fantastic Shuttle Time action photo (as opposed to posed group photos) please post on Facebook with #oceaniabadminton, #bwfshuttletime and send us a high resolution copy. Please ensure that if the picture has images of children we are allowed to republish it.

The new BWF Shuttle Time website is due to be launched within the next month which will give easy access to resources and will simplify the post-course reporting process.

Please keep looking for opportunities to hold teacher courses and deliver Shuttle Time to more people in your country. Please ensure that you keep Nadia informed of these courses and provide the post-course reporting as required by BWF – this is important for us to demonstrate the great work our members are doing with the Shuttle Time programme.

BWF Level I Coaching – New Zealand completed their second BWF Level I course earlier this month increasing the number of qualified coaches in our region

We are currently looking at available Level II courses in other continents for some of our Level I qualified coaches to attend in 2016.

Player Development The 7th Player Development Camp for players and coaches from Tonga and Tahiti was undertaken as a lead-in to the Auckland International with player’s under-going fitness testing, on court physical and skills sessions, tactical training and match analysis under the leadership of Coach Ji Hyun Marr.

Player Development plans for 2016 are currently being discussed with a view to more collaboration with Australia and New Zealand’s programmes and coach development to enable all players in our region to work together to collectively achieve better results; particularly with several high profile events in our region in the next few years.

BWF Para World Championships – great to see Oceania represented by 5 players from Australia and 1 from New Zealand. Congratulations to New Zealand’s Nina Kirsten who won a silver medal in the SS6 Women’s Doubles

BWF World Senior Championships – this large event with over 1200 players is currently on in Sweden. Oceania is represented by Loke Poh Wong (AUS) and Doriana Rivera (NZ). TJ Weistra, who resides in NZ and is known to many is also playing but under the banner of Netherlands.

Keep in Contact Please keep in contact with us, we are only a phone call, skype call, or email away. Let us know what badminton activities are happening in the region. If you need to know anything, need assistance, want to discuss plans or ideas please get in touch with any of our staff members: Julie, Nadia or Lynne