Central Football have announced some minor changes to their structure and some of the roles within their organisation designed to provide more capacity to support clubs and provide consistency across the delivery of competitions and programs.

The first change sees the centralisation of the existing five regional competition management roles into two Competition Manager roles that will be taken up by Dana Herbison (Hawkes Bay, Tairāwhiti/Gisborne) and Matt Wallace (Manawatu/Whanganui/Taranaki). Both Herbison and Wallace will manage all competitions within their respective regions whilst considering possible improvements to existing and opportunities for new competitions and events.

With club support in mind, a new role of Community Engagement Manager has been created that will see support offered to clubs to help them provide a great experience to their members, be supported where needed around governance and strategy and ultimately become more sustainable entities. Part of this new role will be designed to help the pending changes to the Incorporated Societies Act and embed pathways for players, coaches, and administrators. Experienced existing Hawkes Bay Operations Manager Shane McKenzie will move to this Federation wide role on 4 June 2024.

In Taranaki, the recently announced appointment of Michael Reive to the newly formed Community Operations Manager – Taranaki, was an opportunity to provide additional resource to that region given the membership, geographical size and location and obvious potential for growth.

Finally, each of the current regional based Community Development Officers have had a title change becoming Regional Community Managers and essentially being the focal point for each of the regions in terms of player development, community programs and coach education. Steve Hoyle (Hawkes Bay), Mikaela Bouwmeester (Manawatu), Cathy Norris (Whanganui) and John Gray (Taranaki) all fill these roles with an appointment to the vacant position in Tairawhiti Gisborne hoped to be announced shortly.

In terms of management roles, Donald Piper will lead the Operations team including the Competition and Community Engagement Managers whilst Leon Birnie will lead the Regional Community Manager team.

CEO Darren Mason was pleased with the outcome of the changes, saying, “Whilst the structure changes were relatively minor, the plan is that they will have a significant impact on our efficiency and effectiveness and enable us to be more available and accessible to our clubs and other stakeholders. There are a number of our clubs that are either in the process of developing medium to long term strategies for their futures or are at least considering how they will evolve, and we want to have resource and expertise available to assist with this where we can”.

For full list of Central Football staff click HERE 

Article added: Thursday 06 June 2024