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Coaching
I would like to recognise the
time and effort Michael Emerson
has put into his role as coach
of the national team. Michael
put a great deal of time into
preparing the team for the world
championships and the team for
Oceania 2005.
The preparation of the Oceania
team meant trips to Rotorua,
Hawkes Bay and Wellington (at
Michael’s own expense) to ensure
the players had the best
opportunity to be at their best
in the Oceania championship.
This was in addition to the time
spent with the Auckland players.
It was unfortunate that Michael
was not able to get the team
together as much for the Trans
Tasman trophy competition.
As well as his New Zealand team
duties, Michael has been more
than willing to assist regions
with their coaching when
requested. At last there is
evidence that the coaching
programmes are beginning to get
to where we want them and we are
in a position to use Michael’s
knowledge and skills to put the
Level 2 (regional) coaching
structures in place.
Umpires
Umpiring of petanque in New
Zealand was given a boost with
the attendance of four people
(Fiona Browne, Andy Gilbert,
Trevor Neilson and Barbara
Whittington) at a seminar run by
Mike Pegg from England. Mike is
held in high regard as an umpire
in Europe and it was great that
he could come to Australia to
run the seminars.
All four New Zealand
participants passed the umpiring
exam. Congratulations to you
all.
Terry Holt has continued his
good work in this area in the
Southern region and has
organised examination for
several people in the South
Island.
We need to ensure that the
people who have passed the
theory examination are given the
opportunity to complete the
practical examination. It is a
boost to our sport that we are
beginning to see people willing
to place an emphasis on umpiring
at national level rather than
playing.
Sponsorship
Peugeot was once again our major
commercial sponsor and we are
pleased to have them on board
again. There has been a change
of personnel with whom I have
been dealing at Sime Darby
Automobiles NZ Ltd (the Peugeot
importer) but there is a firm
willingness to continue the
relationship between the two
parties.
During the meeting I had with
the marketing manager (to
re-sign the sponsorship for
2005) it was acknowledged that
there are other areas we can
explore that would be of mutual
benefit. One of these areas is
at the regional level. These
'other' initiatives will be
progressed during 2005.
We continue to meet SPARC's
criteria for funding and
appreciate the help we get from
them. During the year Barbara
Whittington and I had a very
good meeting with Elizabeth
Mildenhall who is our
Relationship Manager at SPARC.
Elizabeth keeps us in the
information loop with regular
up-dates from SPARC.
There are other potential
sponsors out there who we must
approach. Any approach needs to
be made in a very organised and
structured way and we (the
executive) must have help in
this area.
At the national singles
championships in Christchurch
during an impromptu meeting of
executive/council members
present at the championships we
set up a subcommittee to explore
sponsorship opportunities.
Nothing happened.
During the year I also sent out
an email to executive and
council members for someone to
explore an opportunity with ASB
Bank. I had no response.
Junior Petanque
Junior petanque is very strong
in some areas of the country and
I thank those people involved
who work tirelessly in this
area. However, there are some
regions where very little is
done with this important aspect
of our sport.
We desperately need someone to
co-ordinate this at the national
level so that all regions have
an active programme along the
same or similar structured
format.
Although it doesn’t fit into the
scope of this report (i.e. it is
not within the 2004 year) I was
invited to attend (and be
involved) in a junior training
session at Caversham Club whilst
I was in Dunedin in February of
this year. It was great to
witness the enthusiasm of these
juniors and the senior club
members who were running the
session.
General Administration
Administration under the new
structure/constitution appears
to be suffering from
communication difficulties. I
believe some of the difficulties
can be put down to teething
troubles with the new system and
misunderstanding of how the
structure is supposed to work.
We (administrators) need to put
a great deal of effort into this
area to ensure that we all have
the same vision to which we are
working. A lot more support
needs to be given to the
executive by effective
sub-committees taking on more
responsibility for the
development of the sport.
Two full council/executive
meetings and three
Executive-only meetings were
held during the year. It is
proposed to hold more council
meetings in 2005.
Bowls New Zealand
In the later part of the year I
had a very fruitful (2 hour)
meeting with David Parker
(Marketing and Communication
Manager) at Bowls New Zealand (BNZ)
headquarters in Auckland.
Some of the points we discussed
were as follows:
-
What can each organisation
do to help each other?
-
What can Petanque New
Zealand learn from BNZ’s
experience with gaining
major sponsorship?
-
The value of a membership
database.
-
The BNZ magazine.
-
Game Development Officer.
-
Bowls New Zealand structure
International
2004 Trans Tasman Trophy
New Zealand defended the
Trans-Tasman trophy in Masterton
on the Monday and Tuesday
following the Masterton club’s
annual mid-winter tournament.
New Zealand was represented by:
Denise Bavidge, Sharon Cannon,
Geoff Greer, Murray Porter,
Michael Rocks, Niau Ruta, Ron
Sandilands, Dirk Winnie.
Coach: Michael Emerson; Manager:
Graeme Morris
Result: Australia 54 points, New
Zealand 42 points
Although New Zealand lost the
trophy, the tournament was very
successful with many positive
comments made by the Australian
team members.
2004 World Championships,
Grenoble, France
New Zealand was represented at
the world Championships by the
following:
Ian Baker, Allan Fletcher,
Christian Fouquet, Richard
Swaney.
Coach: Michael Emerson; Manager:
Graeme Morris.
This was the first time New
Zealand has attended the
championships with a coach. I
believe this was a successful
initiative because it gave the
New Zealand coach the
opportunity to observe petanque
at the highest level and to
interact with players and
coaches from other countries.
New Zealand finished with a
final classification of 33rd=
out of 53 competing teams.
(Australia finished 49th=)
International Administration
During the Trans-Tasman
tournament there was an
opportunity for the
executive/council members
present from both New Zealand
and Australia to get together to
discuss the future of the Trans
Tasman trophy competition and
other matters of mutual
interest.
I believe that in the last 3
years Petanque New Zealand and
Petanque Australia have
developed a close working
relationship. This has been
achieved by regular discussions
between myself, the president of
Petanque Australia (Andre
Deramond) and the secretary of
Petanque Australia (Chinka
Steele) during Trans Tasman and
World Championship events plus
informal discussions by other
executive/council members as the
opportunity has arisen.
Petanque New Zealand and
Petanque Australia are very keen
to discuss issues of mutual
concern and work to develop
petanque in each of our
countries, Oceania and the Asia
Pacific region.
Andre and I have also been
pro-active at international
level by voting together to help
ensure the opinions of countries
outside the major European
counties are heard.
A special alliance between New
Zealand, Australia, Canada,
Netherlands, Sweden and
Singapore has developed in the
last 2 or 3 years. This alliance
is helping to keep a balanced
approach to the development of
petanque at FIPJP (world) level.
International Delegates Meeting,
Grenoble
I attended the 2004 meeting of
delegates in conjunction with
the world championships in
Grenoble.
There was an election for
president and executive members
of the international federation
(FIPJP) at this meeting. The new
president elected is Claude
Azima of France who replaces
Henri Bernard of France. The
other candidate was Roger
Petermans of Belgium.
The election for president was
keenly contested with a certain
amount of lobbying by candidates
prior to the meeting. The voting
was very close and I think the
outcome was a good one for
petanque worldwide because the
closeness of the voting has
indicated to the new president
that there must be changes made
to the structure and direction
at the international level. It
is interesting to note that
correspondence coming from the
FIPJP office indicates that
changes are being made.
During the meeting a
controversial issue arose over
the allocation of the venue for
the 2006 world championships for
seniors. The executive announced
that the championships had been
allocated back to Grenoble and
that Mr. Bernard had signed a
contract with the organisers of
the current championships to
once again hold the event in
2006. This was not a popular
choice with competitors and
officials from many countries.
This would be the third time in
5 years that the competition
would be held in Grenoble.
A petition was circulated
requesting the executive to
reconsider and allocate the
championships to Senegal, who
had also put in an application.
The petition also asked for an
inquiry into why the immediate
past president Mr Bernard had
stated during the meeting of
delegates that no such contract
had been signed with Grenoble
when in fact there was evidence
that a contract had been signed.
The petition called for a
special meeting to deal with the
situation. The matter was not
satisfactorily resolved during
the 2004 championships.
At the meeting of delegates
Tahiti was admitted to the
international federation and
will compete at the 2005
championships in Brussels.
New Zealand Champions 2004
Congratulations to the following
2004 national champions:
-
National Singles Champion:
Steve Thwaites, Christchurch
-
National Doubles Champions:
Ian Baker and Richard
Swaney, Auckland
-
National Triples Champions:
Michael Rocks, Brian
Smith and Dirk Winnie,
Wellington
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to
thank all those people who have
helped to develop our sport in
the year 2004 and I wish all
players, administrators and
supporters all the best for
2005.
Graeme Morris
Chief Executive Officer |
