Active Voice with Julie Adamson Regional Secondary School Director

Over the years, secondary school events in the region have been focussed on more traditional types of sports – including athletics, cross-country volleyball and basketball – with around 500 to 700 students participating across a number of codes.

But over the last five years, we have seen a number of changes.

Previously the events calendar was designed to lead into national events, to prepare players for a competitive season. Now, in certain events, we have introduced Division Two (no A teams or players) and Division Three for our smaller schools, as some of our schools cannot match some other bigger schools in terms of numbers and skills.

We have also included a number of ‘less traditional' sports in the calendar. Badminton had only one event in the calendar; now we have six regional events due to number of students playing – around 500 students alone give this sport a go.

Table tennis has increased in the last two years, starting with around 50 students and increasing to our current tally of 250, while Futsal has this year doubled to about 34 teams.

Our newest sport in the calendar is Ultimate Frisbee, which is exciting to watch. Mount Ultimate Frisbee ran our first secondary school event on Friday at Wharepai Domain, Tauranga.

At its simplest, Ultimate Frisbee has aspects of Fast Five netball, turbo touch and AFL. Basic skills on display were passing and catching, dynamic speed footwork, agility, athletic, and aerial display.

What makes this a unique sport too is the absence of a referee. I thought it would be chaos in the secondary school sport sector, but was surprised how well the players adjusted. No referee means the game relies on sportsmanship and honesty, and is all about the positive spirit of the game – a great concept.

If you have any questions regarding Ultimate Frisbee in Tauranga, feel free to contact Mount Ultimate via their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/groups/mountultimate/ or at mountultimate@gmail.com