Newsletter from the Board and Survey RESULTS
September 2018
To all Members, Guides, Ambassadors, Funders, and Supporters
We all enjoy our involvement in sport for different reasons. Because of that the emphasis on the things that we think are important will always differ, and that is the conundrum facing all of us who want the Achilles family to prosper. I took on the role as Chair at a very exciting time for our organisation. Our National Manager, John Bowden had only been in his new role for a few months, and there was a commitment from the Board to search for new ways of doing things. My first year has flown by and I am certainly enjoying the experience. I am pleased to report that we have got on with change and I am confident that our members are seeing that. For some, this has taken them by surprise, but the majority of our members are pleased that we are getting out there and giving things a go. The Board and National Manager believe that we may not always get things right but the alternative of doing nothing, in a rapidly changing sport and leisure market, will hurt our organisation for the future, and the Chapters that are the backbone of the Achilles Family.
Well run, professionally administered Chapters, that act as a hub for community activities, which offer fun and relaxed leisure activity for lots of people, and a path to further success in Athletics for others, will prosper in the increasingly diverse sporting world of the future. That we look for new ways of communicating with people who expect things to happen now, not some time in the future. Just as important though is the need to provide a place where people can be “human” and enjoy the social interaction that we all know comes with sport. The time spent with other people relaxing after the rigours of our busy lives.
Achilles is blessed with a number of passionate and engaged volunteers and administrators, all committed to the success of our sport. For this I am most appreciative and I would like to thank all those individuals within the Chapters, that give countless hours to the growth of our organisation. Your commitment and willingness to ‘give back’ to the community is what makes New Zealand a great place to live.
I am acutely aware that I cannot sit in my Auckland office and talk of change, without first consulting with all those affected by proposed change. The feedback to the changes proposed has been mixed; most understand and agree with the concept of levying an individual member, however I now understand that we need to reconsider how we support our Chapters in light of these proposed changes.
Our Partnerships with key organisations such as CIGNA, Pure Sports, Lotteries, Foundation North allow us to explore new opportunities and I would like to thank all for their support over the past 12 months. Your investment is critical to our ongoing viability and success.
At our AGM in May there was some important discussions with those members attending and a
commitment was made to ensure that we communicate both our view on ongoing strategy and direction of Achilles, The results of the survey from our members and then what we believe is a first step to provide a solution around members contribution to Achilles to support the activities and resources required to make us grow further.
An exciting step was the fact that we were able to employ Alana Lythe to manage our communications both within the Website and Facebook but also “snapchat, twitter” and all those apps that I confess is foreign territory to me.
Please review the attachment and we are very open to have further discussions leading up to our next AGM in May 2019.
