Sport Northland's Brent Eastwood 'Sport Thought': Nigel Brereton re-elected as chairman

Sport Northland chairman Nigel Brereton (left) was recently re-elected to his position as chairman, seen here accepting the Governance Mark by Sport NZ deputy chairman Jason Shoebridge. Photo / Supplied

Sport Northland held its 2019 AGM recently, ending another successful year for the trust.

Current chairman Nigel Brereton was re-elected by the membership, while the other elected position went to Libby Jones. Both will serve a three-year term through until 2022.

Brereton is a partner in local accountancy firm Russell Turner and has been a board member since 2014. He was elected deputy chairman in 2016 and chairman in 2018 upon the retirement of long-standing trustee Chris Biddles.

Jones, who lives in Paparoa, was appointed as Kaipara District Council (KDC) councillor on the Sport Northland board in 2016.

However, she did not stand again as a councillor in the recent elections and as such, stood for the board through the elected process and was subsequently successful.

She was also re-elected onto the Northland District Health Board (NDHB) this year and will no doubt continue to champion the strong partnership between Sport Northland and the NDHB based around the successful Green Prescription, Energize and Watersafe initiatives operated by Sport Northland.

Jones is manager of Jigsaw North Family Services in Whangārei and is also a board member of Rural Support Trust Northland and Volunteering Northland.

The board bid farewell to Paul Dimery (Northland Regional Council), Colin "Toss" Kitchen (Far North District Council) and elected member Arriane Christie, all who served the board for a three-year term.

The new Kaipara appointee is newly-elected KDC councillor David Wills from Kaipara's West Coast-Central ward. He has business experience with a national food company and as a rural service manager.

He currently operates a farming business in Kaipara and his community service has included school boards, sports coaching and rugby refereeing.

The new board members from NRC and FNDC have not yet been appointed.

Richie Guy, a previous long-term chairman of the Sport Northland board, was unanimously re-elected as patron of the organisation for the 2019/20 year.

Guy chaired the board for more than 20 years through until 2014, and in 2015 took over the patron role from another long-standing trustee, the late Dr Matt Marshall.

In his report to the AGM, Brereton highlighted a great year for the board and the wider organisation, citing such developments as the board's continued Tikanga Māori journey, the awarding of Governance Mark by Sport NZ, a tweak to the wording of the organisation's vision and purpose to include play and active recreation in addition to sport, and the continued progress of the Northland Sports Governance Forum where the chairs of the major Northland sporting codes come together to discuss solutions to common challenges.