
It's been several months since my last email, and it's crazy to think how much the world has changed over this time. There have been huge impacts on our country and communities and many people connected to our sport would have been impacted so I hope everyone has been staying safe and managing the best they can.
The NZAFF Board meetings have continued and despite a lot of uncertainty we are trying to plan against a range of scenarios, and to support our regions and clubs through the upcoming season in whatever form it may take.
With us back into Govt alert levels there is still a lot of unknowns around the upcoming season, especially in Auckland, but more will be shared on this over the coming weeks. For now I thought I would update on a few matters.
AGM Reminder & Board Member / Patron Nominations
Our Annual General Meeting will be held via Zoom on Sunday October 4th at 12pm and nominations for the following close this weekend (we originally advertised September 4th but will keep them open this weekend)
1) 2 Board Members (1 elected position and 1 appointed position)
2) Patron
More information can be found here and please ensure you are sharing amongst your clubs, peers and communities to get quality people nominated for these positions. It is hard to get volunteers putting their hands up, but they can be fulfilling roles which can really make a positive impact on our sport.
Appointment Of Seconded Board Position
As part of our strategy to grow women's participation in American Football we decided to appoint someone to focus specifically on this and bring in some new viewpoints, and help the NZAFF Board drive this forward.
We are please to announce Shernice Henry is taking up this position, with work underway planning for the season. Shernice has a long connection to the Papatoetoe Wildcats as a player, manager and administrator and we are excited to have her input.
Annual Member Survey - COVID Edition
As we have done in the past, we have created a member survey to get feedback on the state of our sport, key challenges and focus areas from members perspectives, and to get feedback on our performance as a Board.
This year, given COVID-19s impact on sport we have also added some questions to gauge feedback from our members on the impact the pandemic will have on the game we love. With gameday equipment sharing being prevalent within our sport given the lack of personally owned equipment and high costs, there are huge potential impacts around how we keep our players safe in the world of COVID-19.
Please take the time to complete the survey and share with your clubs / regions as it is valuable feedback to help us continue to strive to get better as a board.
2020 Club Flag Nationals
Growing the non-contact version of our sport was already a major priority for the board to help get new people into the sport, but given the potential impacts around shared equipment it could be even more relevant this season.
Whilst we know it is hard to plan ahead with uncertainty around public events etc we are at this stage pushing to hold the rescheduled 2020 Club Flag Nationals on October 24th and 25th in Auckland.
We encourage our member Clubs to really get behind this and within Govt guidelines see if you can get your members training together with something to aim for in October. At this stage the plan is to still have this event live streamed via the Sky Sport NEXT platform which will be exciting for our sport.
As always, please reply if you have any feedback or questions and Russell (gm@nzaff.co.nz) is a resource there to help in any way he can.
Regards,
Todd Wackrow
NZAFF Chairman