Latest news with #LINDAROBERTSON
Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Sports codes left wondering where all the coaches have gone
The annual Green Island sevens football tournament. PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON As the international rugby season kicks off in earnest, and other sporting codes compete for TV airtime and fans' disposable income, something worrying is happening down at the grassroots. Sports clubs across many codes are running with drastically fewer volunteer coaches and administrators, and the pressure is rising. According to the NZ Amateur Sport Association, the average number of volunteers has fallen more than 40% since the onset of the Covid pandemic, and those who remain are close to burnout. Volunteering has long been the lifeblood of community sport, but the average number of active volunteers in sport clubs has dropped from 31 to just 18 per club over the past five years. Coaching roles, so often filled by volunteers, are increasingly vacant or stretched. Sport New Zealand estimates young New Zealanders spend millions of hours each year participating in sport and recreation. These experiences rely on the goodwill of those volunteers — unpaid, untrained and often unacknowledged. While participation numbers remain healthy, fewer volunteers are having to do more of the work in many clubs. We may be witnessing a slow erosion of capacity that will stretch clubs thinner each season — until something gives. The pressure is especially visible in the area of health and safety — specifically, the measures and policies put in place to safeguard children from harm, abuse and exploitation. My research, conducted with volunteer coaches across New Zealand, has looked at how administering safeguarding policies affects coaching. The picture that emerged was one of confusion and caution rather than clarity. Coaches were unsure how to get it right, and wary of getting it wrong. Just 33% found their sport's safeguarding policy helpful. Others described defensive behaviours such as avoiding physical contact with players entirely, or hesitating to coach across gender lines. These weren't formal requirements, they were improvised responses, driven by uncertainty and fear of consequences. Some of the strain is caused by the system. Clubs are now expected to meet an expanding list of compliance and governance requirements. The Incorporated Societies Act, for example, requires every registered club to review its constitution, a task that usually falls to the same handful of volunteers already juggling coaching, managing uniforms or running sausage sizzles. A report from the Amateur Sport Association suggests only a third of clubs knew by 2024 what the re-registration process required, underscoring the challenges of implementing large-scale compliance changes in a volunteer-led system. It might be tempting to think volunteering would recover with better support — more toolkits, training and recognition. But early findings from my current research suggest something deeper is required. Volunteers aren't stepping back because they lack information, but because the experience of volunteering has become increasingly complex, isolating and hard to sustain. Three types of pressure are emerging most clearly: • "Role bleed" is when volunteers end up doing far more than they signed up for — agreeing to coach a junior team but finding themselves managing finances, sorting uniforms or leading the AGM; • "Interpretive risk" is the stress of not knowing what the rules mean in practice (especially around sensitive areas such as child safety), and the potentially serious consequences of getting this wrong. • "Compliance fatigue" involves the energy-sapping obligations around paperwork, reporting and other bureaucratic requirements. While often necessary, this work is rarely energising. As any volunteer will tell you, one thing that cuts across all three of these pressures is relationships. Where they are strong and volunteers feel supported, trusted and respected, they endure, even when demands are high. But when they're strained or absent, even modest pressure can take a toll – not just on retention, but also on personal wellbeing. There's another striking aspect of my research findings: it's not just about why people walk away, but why some don't. Even when relationships fracture, support disappears and the joy is gone, many volunteers stay out of a sense of loyalty and obligation, and a mixture of identity and habit. There's also a fear that if they step back, everything they've contributed will collapse. This is the quiet cost that is rarely named: not just fewer volunteers, but lonelier, wearier ones. Still turning up, still carrying the weight, but without the sense of reward and fulfilment. Stress, strained relationships and emotional fatigue are well established contributors to mental health decline. It's a quiet contradiction: on one hand, we position sport and recreation as a path to personal and community wellbeing; on the other, we overlook the toll it takes on the volunteers who hold it all together. There's no silver bullet. But the first step is recognising volunteer wellbeing isn't just a personal challenge, it's a shared responsibility. We need club systems geared to ease the burden, expectations that don't overreach, and cultures where kindness isn't an afterthought. Ultimately, recruiting more volunteers has to be a priority for all sporting codes — while ensuring the "lifers" who have kept the lights on are looked after in the process. • Blake Bennett is a senior lecturer in sport coaching and pedagogy at the University of Auckland.
Otago Daily Times
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Disco a fundraiser for hip-hop trip
PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON Children have fun at the Rasa School of Dance disco fundraiser on Saturday night. The dance school was fundraising to get its Allies Crew to Phoenix, Arizona next month for the Hip-Hop World Championships. The crew finished fourth at the New Zealand Hip-Hop Dance Championship in April.
Otago Daily Times
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Warm choral music well received
The Royal Dunedin Male Choir performs at St Paul's Cathedral yesterday. PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON Dunedin weather was certainly chilly yesterday, but St Paul's Cathedral was filled with support for warm, inviting choral music from the Royal Dunedin Male Choir's midwinter concert. The programme was supplemented with items from Otago Girls' and Otago Boys' High School choirs, both preparing for the Big Sing regional event next Monday, and the Otago University Sexytet. John Buchannan conducted, pianist was Linda Folland and David Burchell provided organ accompaniment for some items. The concert opened with a bracket of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by Vaughan Williams, a pleasant choral arrangement of The Wild Rovers by Mark Sirett and Wide Open Spaces by contemporary Canadian composer Sarah Quartel, which showed some fine tenor timbre. Their other items included an arrangement of Canlon Lan with good harmony and dynamics, a relaxed delivery of Pacem with violin obligato by Dean Hollebon, who also joined for Abide with Me. If Ever I Would Leave You and Abide With Me were both highlights musically, but on the whole vocal diction from all choral items needed more attention. Sexytet contributed three numbers: Bugle Boy of Company B, Guadeamus Igitur and Kai Waiata. The secondary school choirs each sang two contrasting works. The girls' Nautilas Chorale opened with Britten's popular Deo Gracias followed by All That Jazz accompanied by Will Martin (whose strength as a jazz pianist was ideal), but the song required more animated delivery and stronger top soprano lines. Fortress is a 16-member combined choir. Their contribution was Solitude by Chris Artley and a well-balanced arrangement of Time After Time. Both items required more detail to vocal enunciation. The boys' 14-member Mandate choir (accompanied by Sharon McLennan) sang In Flanders Fields and Mambo Italiano, which was highlighted with choreography. Best wishes to these choirs in their forthcoming Big Sing competition.
Otago Daily Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Round ends with virtual final
Green Island halfback James Arscott attempts to clear the ruck during a Dunedin division 1 game against Taieri at Peter Johnstone Park at the weekend. PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON Club rugby fans will essentially be treated to a final tomorrow. Round one wraps up and the competition is tight at the top. The defending champions Green Island (27 points) lead the standings, but they have a bye. So that means whoever wins the heavyweight clash between Taieri (26 points) and Dunedin (25 points) at Peter Johnstone Park will move into pole position and claim the Speight's Jug as the first-round winner. Harbour (24 points) play University (17 points) at the University Oval in another important fixture. University are outside the top six and they will not want to slip further behind. They are still missing Ricky Jackson, Steve Salelea, Jeremiah Asi, Mac Harris and Mika Muliaina, who are on duty for New Zealand Universities. That is a talented chunk of players. The other two games could be one-way traffic. Kaikorai (20 points) will head to Montecillo Park to play Zingari-Richmond (seven points), who have been labouring this season. Their only win was against the winless Alhambra-Union (one point) in the opening game of the season. AU play Southern (23 points) at Bathgate Park. The Magpies are fresh from an impressive 31-15 win against Kaikorai. They should have too much strength up front for the visitors. They demolished Kaikorai at scrum time last weekend. After the round, the teams will be ranked into two pools. The teams which placed 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 will play crossover games against the teams which placed 2, 4, 6 and 8. As all teams in the odds pool receive an extra bye, additional points will be added at the end of the regular season based on their finishing position in the pool. Points will be allocated as follows: the highest ranked team will get five points, the second-ranked team gets four points and so on. The last-placed team gets one point. Hopefully, that is as clear as home brew. When you have an odd number of teams playing an odd number of fixtures, it all gets a bit murky.
Otago Daily Times
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Accomplished unaccompanied
PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON The Dunedin Harmony Chorus perform an unaccompanied four-part harmony in barbershop-style at the Dunedin City Library on Saturday. Chorus member Barbara Alderson said the weekend was "really good". "The people watching liked it, so that was good." Their performance was part of New Zealand Music Month. The group had two performances at the weekend, the second being yesterday at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. The chorus sang an "eclectic" mix of modern, Scottish and Māori songs and ballads, she said.
