North Harbour Sports Council – a unified voice for sport in North Shore City
Summary
The historical nature of fragmented, uncoordinated, and sometimes conflicting communication to Councils by separate sporting groups often hampers the development and provision of sport and is frustrating to all parties.
Recognition of the need for the North Shore’s sport organisations to have one representative voice to advocate their collective concerns, issues and interests to their council has resulted in the creation of the recently formed North Harbour Sports Council, a body which is already proving to be an effective and positive interface for sport and Council and is being embraced by all parties.
Background & partners
Riki Burgess, Sport Development Advisor at Harbour Sport had been exploring ways in which lines of communication could be streamlined and had been working with council officers to learn how sports groups could attain a more informed understanding of council processes.
“The tradition of various sporting codes going to the city council once a year with their submissions to the annual plan never brought much success”, says Riki.
“Doing things that way hadn’t brought many changes and most organisations didn’t understand council processes.”
“In reality, they could often have been working against each other – all competing for the same piece of turf, water or for the same court.”
With the broadened responsibilities given to councils for providing for healthy and active communities as a result of the Local Government Act (2002) North Shore City Council was also keen to find a more effective communication channel to the city’s sport sector, numbering some 40,000 members.
North Shore City Council’s Sector Development Officer for Sport and Recreation, Sue Dennehy, says “the creation of a formal framework within which sports and council could work together was a welcome initiative for a number of reasons. Not least, because the council with its many silos and mysterious processes were perceived as challenging to work with”.
Both Riki and Sue agreed there was a clear need for sports groups to make more coordinated and timely approaches – with their issues talked through and worked out before, rather than after the fact. They needed to take their message into the right arena at the council, at the right time and talk to the right people.
There was also a desire from the North Shore City Council’s perspective to get a clearer picture of what was happening in the field in order to better inform its own planning processes.
Taking the first steps towards the formation of the North Harbour Sports Council – and getting the buy in of the sports community called for a fully consultative approach, says Riki.
“Getting all the sports representatives together in the same room and working through things together was important in the process of getting agreement and fostering a spirit of cooperation.”
The first step was that the sports groups needed to agree that there had to be a better way to engage with the Council other than the status quo.
With agreement across the board, and after the 2008 round of submissions to the council’s annual plan in April, Riki coordinated the formation of the North Harbour Sports Council, a formal collaboration of regional sporting organisations from the North Harbour region.
The sports council: one voice for sport in North Harbour
The stated purpose of the North Harbour Sports Council is to
- strengthen engagement between sport and the City Council,
- build the sports’ understanding of how City Council processes work and
- inform the City Council of the needs of sports and how best to meet them.
Membership is open to all regional sporting organisations or clubs that act as the regional body, representing members in North Harbour. The 12 sport groups represented to date are: North Harbour Netball, Harbour Rugby, United Soccer 1, Auckland Athletics, Auckland Swimming, Auckland Rowing, Auckland Squash, North Harbour Hockey Association, Tennis Northern, Harbour Sport and North Harbour Volley Ball.
There are ten representatives elected from the following categories:
- Aquatics
- Open water
- Grass fields
- Indoor
- Outdoor non-grass
- Harbour Sport
- Others as approved by the executive.
The ten executive members attend a formal meeting every two months. Their role is to co-ordinate the workings and meetings of their sub groups, represent their sub group’s interests, provide feedback and work on project teams.
North Harbour Sports Council Organisational Chart (PDF, 128 KB)
Achievements & the future
Riki reports there is already evidence that the North Shore Sports Council is effectively representing a unified sport perspective and Sue explains “they have been recognised by the city council as a key stakeholder in the delivery of council’s community outcomes”.
“It is also acknowledged that they will play an important role in informing the council’s new Sport and Recreation Strategy and the Long Term Council Community Plan. They will be involved in all steps from scoping and engaging to consultation and feedback.”
Conclusions
The partnership developing between the North Harbour Sports Council and North Shore City Council is exactly the sort of innovation The Local Government Act (2002) envisioned when it introduced a requirement for Territorial Authorities to be proactive in identifying community outcomes and priorities using a consultative process with their stakeholders.
Through this partnership the potential for sport and recreation on the North Shore has been strengthened and the council has a genuine collaborative model with which to develop community wellbeing in their city.
Visit the Harbour Sport website for further information on the North Harbour Sports Council.
Or contact: Riki Burgess, Harbour Sport (09) 415 4646, sportd@harboursport.co.nz
Updated | 05 Oct 2009.
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