Julie Adamson Sport Bay of Plenty Secondary school coordinator

Peter Miskimmin, chief executive officer of Sport New Zealand recently said 'Sport NZ has a strong belief in the importance of delivering quality sport experiences for young people, and the critical role that secondary schools play in developing a lifelong love of sport”.

'That's why we invest in initiatives like Kiwisport and the Sport in Education programme.”

Recently in Rotorua, 300 plus secondary school sport co-ordinators from all over the North Island gathered for three days for the annual North Island conference.

Sport co-ordinators are the first point of contact in schools for sport or recreational activities, the grass roots for secondary school sport, and the ones behind the scenes of sport.

They are constantly busy with paper work, event forms, code of conduct, budgets, coaches, managers, parents, teachers in charge of sport, conflict management, dealing with codes and most of all dealing with hundreds of students.

Sometimes it's a thankless job and some schools in the Bay do not have full time sport co-ordinators.

Over the three days, sport co-ordinators chose workshops from a wide range of topics including promoting good side-line behaviour, keeping sport affordable, volunteers and coaches, reversing the trends such as teenage drop off in girls sport.

There were also workshops for influencing senior management, assessing the state of sport in your school and sport improving academic and social outcomes for schools.

The opportunity to network with people in similar roles was invaluable and the sharing of ideas and initiatives very beneficial. The workshops were very informative and worthwhile.

Billy Graham was the final speaker of the conference. If you are ever given the opportunity to hear Billy speak, you will be in for a real treat.

He is a fantastic motivational speaker and the 300 plus in the audience were in tears of laughter. Billy is a down to earth man from Naenae and his personal experience stories were something to remember.

'Make It Happen” was his key message. Boxing is his passion and through this and his motto of no drugs, no alcohol, he changes young people lives.

Some of Billy's wisdom was his passport to success: responsibility, compassion, consideration, kindness, duty, obedience, honesty and truthfulness.

Finally, to all those Bay of Plenty parents, schools need you to help provide quality sporting experiences! Bay of Plenty schools need managers and coaches, even if you don't think you have the knowledge, there are training and mentor programs in schools that can help you.

If you want to manage or coach a team please contact your local sport co-ordinator in your school or contact Julie Adamson at Sport Bay of Plenty 07 571 0016.