2018 Water Polo Australia AGM

Water Polo Australia today presented the 2017-2018 Annual Report to stakeholders at the 2018 Annual General Meeting held in Sydney today.

Click here - 2017-2018 Annual Report

The WPA Board together with the State Associations continue to work collaboratively on the the WPA Strategic Plan ‘Towards 2020 – growing and strengthening water polo in Australia’.

Now one year into the role, WPA President Thomas Whalan said that 18 months into the new strategic plan the whole sport is focused on bulding capability and capacity in the sport from the grassroots through to national teams.

“While the 2017-2018 annual report focuses on the results and achievements of the financial reporting period, this AGM we also wanted to recognise a few of the significant milestones the sport has achieved during this year.

“We started off the year with announcement of new event, ‘Australian Youth Water Polo Championships’ which will be held in Brisbane in January 2019 thanks to the generous support from Tourism and Events Queensland and Brisbane Marketing.

“This event has the potential to be a game changer for the sport, bringing together our age championships to create one festival of water polo. The two week event will not only see our brightest junior participants come together, but will also host a test match series with our Aussie Stingers and Sharks against Japan, a FINA referees course as well as development and participation opportunities for coaches, juniors and many more.

“As our high performance program continues to build towards Tokyo 2020, this year we saw our Aussie Sharks deliver their best ever international performance with a silver medal at the FINA World Cup, which was truly engergising for all our fans back home. Our women’s equally did us proud with a bronze medal at the World Cup – both results a credit to the athletes’, program staff and all those who dedicate so much energy to developing our teams.

“It wasn’t just our senior teams representing us proudly, with the youth women’s team finishing 8th and men’s youth team finishing 11th at their respective FINA World Championships – one more showing the depth of water polo talent in Australia,” said Whalan.

In presenting the the annual report the Board acknowledge financial position at the end of last financial year and plans to bring the organisation back to surplus.

“WPA experienced another challenging financial year which resulted in a loss of $236,000. The board budgeted for a surplus and we missed the target.

“We have undertaken a thorough audit of the financial reporting framework against budget and I thank Cara O’neil for her extensive efforts since her recent appointment as Finance Manager together with the Finance Audit and Risk Committee.

“We will deliver a surplus in FY19 without significant disruption to delivering on our strategic priorities and I thank the continued investment and support from Sport Australia,” said Whalan.

While there will be plenty of key milestomes in delivering on the strategic plan – the Board also acknowledge the focus for the immediate future:

• Replacement of the Water Polo Australia CEO – which is in the final stages of recruitment
• High Performance – finalising the new strategic plan and in the women’s team embedding new Head Coach Pedrag Mihailovic into the program as well as the 2019 FINA World Championships
• Development – referee and coach development continue to be a key focus, with the LearningPool online tools
• Competition – delivering the first ever Australian Youth Water Polo Championships to success, building on the OVO Australian Waterpolo League, hosting the FINA World League Inter-Continental Cup in Perth and aligning national calendars.