The Regional Sports Trust (RST) Network is celebrating a pivotal milestone in our efforts to strengthen sport, wellbeing and community engagement across Aotearoa New Zealand, as we mark 18 months since the project began.

The RST Network comprises 17 independent, autonomous charitable trusts, each with a proven track record spanning more than 30 years of operation. They each have a strong regional and local community mandate, are governed by a Board of Trustees and led by a Chief Executive. Each region has its own unique environment, communities and challenges. However, all RSTs share a common vision of enriching lives and well-being through sport and physical activity, particularly for tamariki and rangatahi.

Together, the RSTs have always understood the significant potential that exists as a national network – however, it has not been until recently that the opportunity has existed to truly unite RSTs into a high-performing network. The Sport NZ (Strengthen and Adapt) funded RST Network project aims to amplify this collective RST impact, helping them achieve more together than each could alone.

The 17 RSTs have chosen to collaborate because they believe the Network will be able to better advocate as one for greater alignment with national agencies. In the process of doing this, the RST Network project is also aiming to ensure there is improved leadership and governance capability in order to advocate better at that national level. The project seeks to bring a more consistent approach to each RST’s organisational capability to deliver outcomes for children and young people in line with the requirements of Sport NZ’s investments – particularly into, and across, geographical priority communities to lift sport and physical activity levels of those missing out.

Sport NZ has supported this potential by investing into four key Network-led initiatives:

1. Advocate as One
2. Organisational Capability
3. Geographical Priority Communities
4. Te Taumata o Kupe (giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi)

The attached infographic outlines progress being made in each of the initiatives and in overall collaboration between the RSTs.

“Like any collaborative project where multiple organisations are involved, it has taken time to gain momentum, but even so it has been pleasing to see what has been achieved in the past 12 months,” says RST Network Director Brent Eastwood.

“The three capability initiatives are all aligned with Sport NZ Partnerships Investment into individual RSTs, and its been great to see the progress being made in developing governance, leadership, staff engagement, Te Ao Māori and Geographical Priority Communities within RSTs.”

Advocating as One has been more difficult, he says, given the political environment the project has been operating in since its inception. “This is the first time for over 20 years that the RST Network has been in a position to advocate as a collective, so establishing solid foundations with key national agencies has been the priority” says Eastwood.

Nevertheless, there has been successes. Given the lack of any ‘new’ money on offer nationally, ‘responding as one’ has been necessary as RSTs strive to retain contracts they already have with other government agencies.

To that end, the Network funded and facilitated the completion of a national Green Prescription evaluation, which was a significant factor in the re-signing of contracts for all 13 RSTs involved. Work continues from the Network to develop the initiative further through a national coordination role on behalf of the 13 RSTs.

The Network is now looking forward to continuing the momentum over the second half of the project.

Article added: Tuesday 02 September 2025