A good sport

Brent Sheldrake with his wife, Leigh and sons, Tyler (4) and Harrison (6). Picture by Paul Rickard

One of the major driving forces behind Gisborne’s Kaiti Hill Challenge is hoping to bring similar innovative ideas to prominence in other North Island communities, after being appointed to a new role with Sport New Zealand.

Sport Gisborne-Tairawhiti chief executive Brent Sheldrake this week took up a new role, working with five regional sports trusts in Northland, Waikato, Hawke’s Bay, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne-Tairawhiti, with the aim of creating more alignment between Sport NZ’s strategic objectives and key regional stakeholders.

“It involves a lot of advocacy work, and trying to seek out more opportunities to collaborate and encourage heightened investment in sport, with the end goal of getting communities even more active.

“It’s very exciting — I still get to be based in Gisborne but I’m looking forward to the change and the different markets I’ll be working with. For instance, Bay of Plenty’s growing and ageing population, Gisborne obviously is very unique with its 50 percent Maori population, while we have somewhere like Waikato which has a regional council, a metro city council and nine territorial authorities,” says Mr Sheldrake.

“It’s really sad to leave — it’s like giving up a child but it’s been a fantastic seven years and a really fun journey.

“It’s been an amazing ride. In partnership with different enablers in the region, Sport Gisborne-Tairawhiti has won three national sector awards at the Sport and Recreation Awards, one being with the Tairawhiti Softball Association, another with the Secondary Schools Principals’ Association around the Wednesday afternoon school sport, and a third partnering with Shivnans Pharmacy in delivering the Kaiti Hill Challenge,” he says.

“The organisation was also the Westpac Business Awards supreme award winner in 2015 so it’s in an awesome position. That was a great acknowledgement from the business community that we’re doing well both strategically and operationally.

“There’s been so many really great outcomes. It’s just been great fun to go on this journey with this fantastic group of passionate staff and my board, hand in hand with this community.

“A few years ago, together we co-created and set a pretty lofty vision to get more people active, and through some awesome partnerships, I believe we are well on our way to achieving that vision.

“You only have to look at the great job the good folk at the Tairawhiti Softball Association are doing. There are some sports doing some amazing work out there, and it is our job to support, enhance and scale those efforts where we can and transfer those learnings to other codes.”

Improving participationMr Sheldrake says he has a particular personal interest in improving sporting participation among secondary school-age youth.

“If you look at sport participation here locally, it really peaks around the end of intermediate school, and I’m not sure we’re offering the right sort of quality experiences for kids in the teenage years. That’s not just a Gisborne thing — it’s a global issue with the changing nature of society.

“People are spending more time on devices and all these things that are demanding kids’ attention and time. I believe as a nation, we can do a better job, in terms of offering the sort of experiences these young people are after. I see that as a significant challenge for all of us.

“That whole teenage space is something that really excites me.”

Things have changed dramatically, in recent years, with the traditional offerings of the past now having to compete with not only more sporting options, but more offerings in general.

“It’s about what’s grabbing their attention — you’ve got devices, music and this wonderful world called the ‘internet’. It wasn’t that long that long ago we didn’t have iPads and Xboxes vying for our attention — and we also have on-demand TV so you can watch what you want, whenever you want. It’s all pretty enticing. Society is changing at a remarkably rapid rate and it’s often tough for the volunteer sports codes to keep up,” he says.

“As a nation, we need to unpack that and understand it better as it relates to teenagers and in particular, teenage girls.”

Mr Sheldrake is “stoked” with how much the organisation has achieved over the past seven years and wants to publicly acknowledge his thanks to the board, staff and all the stakeholders over his time as chief executive.

Sport NZ chief executive Peter Miskimmin says Mr Sheldrake has been appointed as one of four regional managers across the country.

“Brent is a very accomplished, highly- successful leader — highly-regarded not only in that region, but also around the country for his innovation, his insights and his ability to collaborate and work with others,” says Mr Miskimmin.

Big successThe last seven years have been “enormously successful” for Sport Gisborne-Tairawhiti.

“It has been at the forefront of industry awards for the last three or four years and some of the programmes they have initiated have certainly been seen as best practice across the country.”

Mr Miskimmin pointed out the introduction of the Kaiti Hill Challenge and the growth of softball here, as two examples of the region’s successes.

“They are all locally-led opportunities that you wouldn’t normally get if you were running a centralised perspective. What we are looking for is innovative solutions within communities and Brent and the team at Sport Gisborne-Tairawhiti have done that particularly well. So much so that they are recognised nationally as an organisation that can work very, very well with its community.”