Welcome to the Boxing New Zealand Community newsletter

Produced by Steve Hartley – Communications

May 2019 Newsletter

RIP. Tom Dunn:

Boxing NZ has lost one of its great competitors, servants and administrators. Tom will be sorely missed by many.  His Memorial was held recently with numerous boxing identities there.

 I spoke on behalf of the BNZ family and thanked Norma and Toms family for loaning the services of a good man.

Boxing NZ wishes Norma well for the difficult times ahead.

For further reading on the life of Tom please go to the BNZ Website.

The AIBA is gone from the Olympics:

It is now official the IOC has announced AIBA will NOT be the vehicle for boxing at the 2020 Olympic.

The IOC has set up a special taskforce to oversee the delivery of a boxing competition at next year's Olympics in the Japanese capital.  The group, to be chaired by International Gymnastics Federation President Morinari Watanabe, will also be tasked with organising the qualification system.

Qualifying events are set to take place between January and May of next year.  Exact weight categories for the men's and women's events have not yet been confirmed, meaning the uncertainty for boxers hoping to compete at Tokyo 2020 will continue for even longer.  The IOC has set a deadline of the end of next month for this to be put in place, while a review of quota places will also be carried out.

Professional boxing organisations could be among those the taskforce contact to help run boxing at next year's Games but who will be in charge of organising it remains unclear.  The IOC revealed only that it would be "organised following guidelines established by the IOC Executive Board".

"This is a very good day for boxers because now they know there will be an Olympic boxing tournament in Tokyo and there will be a qualification system," Bach added.  "All the partners involved will do everything to ensure this will be a safe and fair competition."

The decision, taken by the IOC Executive Board after it received a 30-page report from the Inquiry Committee, is subject to final approval at next month's session from June 24 to 26. This is expected to be a formality.

This could be good news for the Oceania countries as we pursue the reinstatement of the Oceania Olympic pathway. The IOC may be more favourable to our cause than the AIBA.

The allocation of the Olympic participant spots may be applied in a manner that reflects a fair allocation to member countries. The allocation of the sixty of the two hundred and eighty six available spots that went to the AIBA WSB boxers in the past may be revisited by the IOC.

This is where our spots went.

It has been confirmed by the IOC that eight Men’s events and five Woman’s events will be conducted.

The IOC has stated that it will clarify all information including Pathways and Qualification events by the end of June.

Competition:

Three International tournaments for our boxers in the last few weeks.

A team of non-National title holders recently attended the ARAFURA Games in Darwin with some good results as per below:

Female

• Gold: Ariane Adllington, Christina Reid
• Silver: Pelea Fruen
• Bronze: Katie Thompson, Michelle Nuku, Bree Cumming

Male

• Gold: Siaki Tu,
• Bronze: Jesse Mahoney, Trevor Swainson

Members of our Elite squad attended the Feliks Stamm International Tournament in Poland, results below.

Female

• Tasmyn Benny: win, loss.
• Amy Andrew: loss
• Troy Garton: loss
• Chea Keneally: win, loss

Male

• David Nyika: win, win, win - Gold
• Emille Richardson: win, win, loss - Silver

The team then competed in the Boxam Elite tournament in Spain, results below

Female

• Tasmyn Benny: win, win, loss - Silver
• Amy Andrews: loss
• Troy Garton: loss
• Chea Keneally: win, loss - Bronze

Male

• David Nyika: win, loss - Bronze
• Emile Richardson: loss

Coming up:

• North Island Golden Gloves: 31^st May- 2^nd June
• South Island Golden Gloves: 1-2^nd June
• Elite squad, Thailand Open International 18^th – 28^th July

NZOC:

The NZOC has been very supportive of our drive to get the Oceania Olympic pathway back and have written a letter to be presented to the IOC supporting our efforts.  It will be very interesting if the news from the IOC assists the Oceania Confederation in its efforts to get the Oceania pathway reinstated.

The NZOC Members Forum was held in Auckland this week and Steve Hartley attended in the capacity as a BNZ representative.  It was more of a meeting to familiarize members with the way NZOC does business and discuss matters concerning the relationships National Sporting Organisations have with the NZOC and their Athletes.  The NZOC is focused on existing and potential Elite Olympic athletes, their journey to the Olympic Games, results at the Olympics and how NSO’s can get their athletes there.

Oceania Confederation Meeting:

There will be a meeting of the Oceania boxing nations at the Pacific Games to be held in Samoa in July. (Boxers from NZ are not attending these games).  This will be the first meeting in four years and it will be essential for BNZ to be represented at this meeting.

New Zealand does not have a member on the executive of the OBC and this must be addressed.

The Oceania pathway reinstatement will also be on the agenda, NZ was leading the drive for this, lately Ted Tanner from Australia has also taken on this task in his role as the President of Oceania and an Executive member of the AIBA.

Sport NZ Community Funding round:

The paperwork for this is now done and has been presented to Sport NZ.  The work we do and the work we have done is the whole crux to getting better funding. The hardest part regarding funding is proving what we do and have done to the powers that be.  All in all, there will be 30 odd pages of reports and a couple of hundred pages of proof of evidence. Over a hundred hours of work but hopefully worth it. 

Participant Survey:

By now most coaches and Associations will have received our latest survey regarding participant satisfaction.  A very big thankyou to all who have replied. The Executive members are very appreciative of the positive comments and the constructive feedback received that show we are heading in the right direction and where you would like to see efforts placed.

Out of many, many positive replies a couple have been rather dismissive of the work we have done.  I struggle to be diplomatic here and ask “just what do some people expect of us” the comments they wrote cut a little close to the bone and to a degree seemed to be out of touch with the majority opinion. At the bottom of the page participants were asked to submit their names so we could contact people to get a better idea of their concerns. We note the worst critics did not submit their names. We are not able to attempt to address your concerns if we cannot contact you. We are up front if you want concerns addressed front up yourselves and give us the opportunity to talk and discuss.

We are doing our very best to serve our sport in the best interests of all but if some are not satisfied then we welcome your input into the executive, we are open to having positive, proactive stakeholders nominated at the next AGM and assist us.  Don’t come at us with just criticism come to us with solutions and get involved in solving the problems you identify - we are always open to ideas and solutions.  We appreciate the feedback where additional ideas were put forward.

We operate on a budget of $20k, we are volunteers and have jobs and families and boxing gyms or other responsibilities to boxing that all compete for our time.

Based on some of the questions we put to our stakeholders we can offer the following immediate response:

• The comment we should have professional, paid people running our sport could be true but we don’t and this will never occur until we have sourced huge funding from our parent bodies.  This funding is not handed out on a silver plate because we asked for it.

   

  It is very difficult for a National sporting organisation such as ours to get general funding whereas smaller entities such as gyms and clubs have some readily available avenues for funding their operations.

  Personal Athlete funding based on performance is available from the High Performance division of Sport NZ.  BNZ has only one athlete at present who qualifies for some of this funding (David Nyika).

   

  Out of the other funding we receive i.e. the Racing Authority (TAB) almost all of this is earmarked for our competitors.  The rest of our income is from registrations and annual association fees. This covers some of the Office expenses (wages/rent/admin) but certainly not all.

   

            There are 36 other sports all fighting for a piece of the funding available each year from             

            Sport NZ. We are one of the little players and at present get chips compared to other   

            sports, however we are actively endeavouring to secure more funding as highlighted  

            earlier in this newsletter.

            The last thing any member of this Executive want, is to see money going over to  

            management that may have been available to our participants.

            One problem that will come to light in the case of paid management is; the possible loss             

            of the community touch and a degree of animosity from some members when some are  

            paid to do their bit for the sport and some are not, especially if the paid positions are    

            filled by people active within our boxing family.

            Money (if ever available) could be better spent on professional advice on how to build  

            our sport and capitalize on the opportunities that our sport could create.

It may be of interest that BNZ has been approached by a company to enter into an agreement that may give us opportunities regarding TV coverage, income and exposure. It is very early days in the process and BNZ will tread carefully regarding any commitments. Members will be further informed as more information comes to light.

• A comment that communication is very poor and we are not transparent is hard to comprehend. Our number one priority has been to communicate with our members in an open and transparent manner.  The question was focused on the past 18 month that this Executive has been in place. 

             It is disappointing the particularly negative responses were submitted anonymously and  

            do not allow us to contact the participant for discussion, therefore we are unable to      

            investigate further. 

Another participant claimed a Board member has taken their wife on an all-expenses paid International trip funded by BNZ. This could be true but the news is three years late and it was no person from this Executive body. Again, this Census was based in relation to the past 18 months and not concerning previous management. 

Out of interest:  in all the years of selfless service to BNZ Mr. Keith Walker has never had an International trip paid for by BNZ. 

• One comment we are hearing a lot is the want for resources to Junior and youth.  This has been taken on board and we wish to address this but we once more need help with this.  If you have any ideas and the people to help implement them please let us know. BNZ will assist with funding for initiatives that will assist the development of our youth.

Once more help us with solutions. We have committed a fairly good budget for such things and will invest but as said we can’t do it by ourselves.

• Another initiative to be started by BNZ is an Athletes voice so we can engage with our athletes and hear their concerns and suggestions.  The format for this could be in the form of a Facebook page, as suggested in the survey. We would appreciate ideas and assistance for this from members. Like many such things time and effort will be required.

In the coming weeks a member of the executive may contact you for further information if your details were supplied in the survey and you have given us permission to initiate this contact.

If you have any burning questions for the executive you are more than welcome to put these questions to us and they will be addressed one way or another.   

 Member satisfaction Census Results 2019:

This census was recently sent out to all coaches and associated members, they were asked five questions:

1. Rate the performance of the BNZ Executive

    

Far above average.         8%

Above average             48%

Average                        28%

Below average               7%

Far below                       7%

1. Rate the communication from the Executive

Far above average         19%

Above average              36%

Average                         26%

Below average               11%

Far below                        5%

1. Rate transparency in the direction of the Executive

Strongly agree.                14%

Agree                               66%

Disagree                          11%

Strongly disagree              7%

Two questions were asked for the opinion of the members:

1. What areas of improvement would you like to see from the Executive?
2. In what area of responsibilities do you think the Executive are doing well?

    

Consensus:

Aside from a couple of disgruntled people ( no names supplied)

it appears that most are very pleased with the work we have been doing.

It is interesting that almost all members are very happy with the communication from the Executive where as a couple are not. The Newsletters are sent out regularly to Member Associations and then to be distributed to members. There may be one or two Associations not passing on information. Perhaps BNZ may need to look at a wider general mailing list to ensure all members are informed.

There were some very good suggestions for improvement in the future, some suggestions are simply not possible given the voluntary basis of the management of BNZ.

One or two fairly left field comments but once more no names supplied.

All in all, it appears we are working in the right direction and will can now start to address some member concerns.

Once more a big thank you to all those who participated in the Survey.

Yours, Steve H. BNZ.

Article added: Tuesday 28 May 2019