Presidents Report for Athletics Tauranga 2024/2025

The 2024/2025 season has been an incredible year for Athletics Tauranga, we have been building momentum on membership numbers and involvement of more members in our club run events. I would like to thank the amazing work the current committee has put in over the last 12 months. The committee consisted of Glenys Kroon (Vice President), Andrea Neal (Secretary), Kent Horner (Treasurer), Alex Whimster, Brenda Poutawera, Bruce Cortesi, Chris Mcknight, Hayden Goldsack, Kerry Hill, Michael Sutton and Val Bromley.

Club membership has had steady growth, particularly across the adult grades. Please see financial report for a breakdown of these.

The club has had so many great results at centre, national and international levels, this included Sam Tanner running in the 1500m at the 2024 Paris Olympics and Sam Ruthe running a sub 4 minute mile at the age of 15, which is the youngest person ever to do this in the world (3m58s35).

The club had a great representation at the NZXC Championships in Napier, our club members brought home a total of 44 medals. From individual, WaiBOP Centre teams and the NZXC Relays, incredible results team! We had a huge success at the New Zealand Road Relays in Taupo, with nine teams representing Athletics Tauranga, and four teams medaling in the NZ Championship races and two teams medaling in the non-championship races. The National Track and Field Championships were held in Dunedin where the club came away with another 23 medals. The Masters Track and Field Champs were held in Auckland, with 19 medals won by our club over the weekends events.

In April 2024 the club hosted the 77th King and Queen of Mt Maunganui, trialing a move away from its traditional Boxing Day date. It was not an easy decision to do this, but a noticeable decline in volunteer availability over the previous years, plus overcrowding on Mauao (often with cruise ship passengers), plus issues with dotterels nesting on the beach were some of the drivers in this decision. The change of date resulted in massive growth amongst the youth taking part but a slump in adult numbers. We thank MTF Finance for coming on board as naming sponsor of this event.

The 2024 Tauranga Open also saw great growth across all age groups with 225 entries. Once again the youth numbers were particularly impressive. In November 2024 the club hosted the Aotearoa Relays Festival, organised by Kerry Hill. It was a great day with a fun mix of options for all ages and levels of competitiveness. Once again Kerry managed to get a bus load of athletes down from Pakuranga club. January 2025 saw the hosting of the Tauranga Twilight T&F meet. Thanks to Bruce Cortesi spear-heading the organisation of this, plus all his work securing sponsors for many of the events. Overall high numbers across many of the events, particularly some of the field events where officials were inundated with athletes. Looking ahead to next year it would be good to be able to tie this event into the Colgate Games that Tauranga is hosting only a week later.

During the year we also hosted the WaiBop Cross Country Champs at Waipuna Park along with the WaiBop Track and Field Champs at the Domain, plus many track and field centre meets. The club has been trying hard to provide club level activities throughout the winter and summer seasons for all members to join in with.

As a committee I feel we are so lucky to have a huge support of volunteers who go above and beyond to help at all our local club events. We have received Grants from the following charities over the last year which has gone towards equipment, event management and our Secretary Contractor Fees. Four Winds Foundation, Western Bay of Plenty Community Fund, We Care Community Trust, The Lion Foundation and NZCT. Supporting the Aims Games Cross Country has always been a great event that the club gets behind and enjoys taking control of.

A huge thanks to Malcolm Taylor for the use of his gear for this event and all the other events that he also helps at. I feel we are getting some traction with our Strategic Plan, by having meetings with a professional strategic planner who has helped guide the club in the right direction. We look forward to actioning the ideas his report has highlighted. We thank Jonathon Kempe from Source Consulting for his free time and experience. We are also working hard on the new constitution which will be finalised later this year. This will require an SGM. Special thanks to Bruce and Glenys for their time and expertise in this area. The club accounting system has had a huge upgrade and all our accounting has now been transferred onto Xero. Thanks Kent for your perseverance in this field.

A final thank you once again to the committee members, club members, coaches, volunteers and supporters that continue to make Athletics Tauranga the awesome club it is. Together we will strive to continue to grow the club and our events to benefit both our members and the wider Tauranga community.

Malcolm Smith President Athletics Tauranga Inc