Mythbusting: What the regional data says
Why collect data on the regions? Sport Canterbury and Sport Hawke’s Bay
Former Sport Canterbury CEO, Selwyn Maister, recalls that he used to struggle to answer questions about sports participation statistics in his region. “Six years ago, I was at a meeting of sports officials and someone asked me if junior sports numbers were increasing. I couldn’t answer factually. So we decided to collect information that would show what trends were happening in Canterbury. We saw it as helping to make the RST a knowledge treasury, and sharing information that would be useful to the Regional Sporting Organisations (RSOs),” he explains.
Sport Canterbury has been collecting data for the past six years. The information comes from RSO annual reports, National Sports Organisation (NSO) annual reports, websites and follow-ups directly with the RSOs where necessary. The findings of the annual survey are shared with RSOs at the monthly breakfast in November each year.
Sport Hawke's Bay began collecting data about three years ago. Their initial focus was on information about coaches in the Hawke’s Bay. Colin Stone, CEO of Sport Hawke's Bay, explains the rationale behind their research: “We have a funding relationship with 18 RSOs and we provide funding for coaches according to a range of factors. As part of this process, we need to know the number of new coaches and whether they are being up-skilled. Basically, we needed more detailed and regular information to support our business objectives, so we started collecting it.”
For both Sport Hawke's Bay and Sport Canterbury, the information they gather is used to support funding decisions, map what is happening in the region and help clarify where work needs to be done. It is simple trend data, indicative of changes taking place over time, but it provides a valuable annual stocktake in the intervals between the New Zealand Sport & Physical Activity Survey which is conducted by SPARC every five years.
Sport Hawke's Bay and Sport Canterbury have gone about things in different ways, and both have experimented with the type and scope of the data they are gathering.
Updated | 07 Oct 2008.
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