2018 Year in Review

We are now 18 Months into our Towards 2020 Strategic Plan which was the result of extensive consultation with our members to identify our vision for the sport and key priorities into the future.

After the resignation of previous CEO Christian Renford, the board of WPA undertook an extensive recruitment process including feedback from our members to identify the best candidate to lead our sport into the future.

As announced at the AGM, I am extremely proud that the board of WPA appointed Joelie Chisholm as Chief Executive Officer who has been in the role since 17 December 2018.

Joelie has an extensive background in the sporting sector including expertise in governance, financial management and organisational transformation. She joins the WPA team having recently worked as an advisor to Olympic sports on governance and collaboration opportunities and has worked in senior roles within Australian Taekwondo, Rowing Australia and Triathlon Australia.

We are pleased to welcome such an experienced sports administrator and leader to the role and combined with the water polo expertise throughout the organisation, we believe Joelie will bring a fresh approach in helping us deliver against our Strategic priorities.

I know how excited Joelie is at this opportunity to immerse herself in the water polo community and realise the potential of the sport both in Australia and on the global stage. Joelie has been involved in sport in many roles as an athlete, coach, club committee member, board member and spouse of an Olympian. The Board of WPA has absolute confidence and support for Joelie’s values, skills and experience and we trust our members will welcome and support Joelie’s appointment.

Corporate

Throughout the year, the board of WPA established a number of new board committees to ensure appropriate emphasis and oversight in key areas of the organisation:

• Governance Committee – to assist the board in pursuing organisational excellence
• High Performance Committee – assist the board and executive in ensuring appropriate board oversight of the WPA Strategic Objectives regarding high performance
• Sports Development Committee – Assist the board to deliver the development objectives for the sport as per the Strategic Plan.

I would like to acknowledge and thank my fellow directors and committee members for their commitment to Water Polo Australia and their many volunteer hours. During the Financial Year, the board has met formally up to 14 times on top of establishing and performing their duties on the relevant committees. Our sport has been built on the efforts of incredible volunteers and I acknowledge the many volunteers who have given freely of their valuable time and expertise including our member Presidents here today. Of course, I also acknowledge the tireless work of our EO’s and staff.

Financially, we missed the mark in 2018 and we take responsibility for spending beyond our budgeted forecast. We have instituted appropriate oversight and controls to ensure we are back on track towards Tokyo 2020 and investing prudently in the sport. Water Polo receives generous support from the Australian Government and our major stakeholders however we are committed to broadening our revenue base with the goal of ensuring affordability and accessibility for our athletes and sustainability for the organisation.

As mentioned, we are pleased to announce the appointment of Joelie Chisholm as our new CEO. We also want to show our appreciation to Cara O’Neill, who filled the two roles as Finance Manager and Interim Acting General Manager during the CEO recruitment process. The amount of time and effort Cara has put into her dual roles and her support to the board and executive team has been amazing and Cara, we are so appreciative of your efforts.

Development

The delivery of our Learning Pool online education and accreditation platform is a big achievement for the sport and is the first time a consistent national accreditation and education platform has been implemented for water polo in Australia. This aligns with our strategic plan in building capability in the sport. There has been a significant investment into the development of the content and platform to deliver this initiative and the fees are reflective of recouping the costs to the organisation while also respecting and supporting prior learning and experience. As mentioned above, affordability is a key priority of the organisation however there is a cost to recoup in implementing such initiatives.

The delivery and alignment of our new capitation model and online database with Revolutionise is another hugely positive step in building capability in our sport for a better customer experience and importantly to have our entire community on the one platform with the benefit of data insights around competitions, athletes, officials, coaches and trends all with a view to providing a better overall experience to our community. This move facilitates a greater ability for commercialisation of our assets at all levels.

I would like to acknowledge the extensive work Holly Tyrell has led in this area and the support provided from our members and volunteers across both projects to provide content for the Learning Pool and implementation of the Member Pool nationally.

I would ask our Members to continue to support these initiatives and especially the Learning Pool to ensure as many people as possible gain valuable education and accreditation amongst referees, coaches and officials in order to support the growth of our sport in Australia.

This year we will continue to work with our members to grow participation and support the roll-out of supportive initiatives such as FlippaBall.

Competition

The year that was, included National club age championships across four age groups in both genders and included combined u14 and u18 division tournaments which provided a good test for the Australian Youth Water Polo Championships to be held in January 2019 and provided.

The OVO AWL was another successful competition where we experienced a vast improvement in the quality and quantity of online streaming along with the delivery of many feature round events. The professionalism of the competition was enhanced this year and the quality of the finals series and live-streaming was a major success and I thank Matt Turnbull for his efforts and the clubs for their continued investment into the league. Matt announced his resignation as Competitions Manager and I would like to extend our thanks for his efforts. The AWL licences are up for renewal in 2020 and WPA will commence a review process to ensure the league is best aligned for the delivery and promotion of our elite competition.

The year ahead will see the Australian Youth Water Polo Championships delivered in Brisbane in January 2019 with over 165 teams confirmed to date and will be a monumental moment for the sport of water polo in Australia and the quality of the event delivery for our community. The event will include test matches between Australian and Japan in both the Sharks and Stingers which will no doubt build excitement in the lead up to Tokyo 2020 and provide a wonderful experience for our teams in front of true home crowds who will be exposed to international water polo. Our major event partners of Tourism & Events Queensland and Brisbane Marketing must be acknowledged for their significant investment along with the support of Water Polo Queensland.

The introduction of the Interstate National Championships has been postponed ensuring alignment with the performance pathway for talented athletes as they transition towards international competition. We need to ensure the pathway is absolutely aligned for athletes, domestic competitions and international tours and competitions and given the significant investment by the sport and water polo community in this area, we need to ensure it is planned appropriately and the accessibility and affordability to our sport is prioritised along with high performance outcomes.

High Performance 

Our Aussie Sharks and Stingers inspire our community through their dedication, commitment and actions in and out of the pool. This year was particularly inspiring as our Sharks secured their first ever World Cup Silver Medal with Captain Aaron Younger named tournament MVP and our Stingers saw the reintroduction of some of our Senior stars and arrived back on the podium with an inspiring bronze medal. These successful results have unlocked welcome direct athlete support from the Australian Olympic Committee and the Australian Institute of sport and we are appreciative of this investment.

A number of our elite athletes are enjoying professional contracts and college scholarships across Europe, the USA and even China with much success and we congratulate them on their success and continue to enjoy watching from afar as they represent Australia with pride.

Also inspiring was the result of our Youth teams with a very commendable 4th to our girls and 8th to the boys at their respective World Championships with some very tough competition.

There have been some significant changes with the recruitment of Aleks Osadchuk (HPM) and Predrag Mihailovic (HC) and they, together with the High-performance teams in partnership with the AIS are working hard to finalise and deliver the best Tokyo 2020 campaign plan whilst also refining our 2020+ HP Strategy together with our major partners across the sport.

I would like to acknowledge and thank our Institute partners, Member associations and AWL clubs for their ongoing support along with all of the clubs who invest substantially in terms of their volunteerism, fundraising and energy in building our water polo community and developing the next generation of stars.

Our purpose is to grow the sport of water polo at all levels while achieving sustainable success at the elite level.

Our vision is for water polo to be regarded as a clean, safe, fun sport with an identified and supported pathway to elite success.

Our major challenge is ensuring our sport remains affordable and accessible which can only be achieved through new and ongoing investment from major partners along with the support of our many contributing volunteers. We have invested heavily into capability building initiatives to support growth and this does come at a cost however WPA is always cognisant of this precarious balance and our goals include prioritising affordability.

Over this festive season I want to emphasise that we want water polo to be a sport full of fun for everybody involved which is our combined responsibility. We are all passionate about seeing our sport succeed and every athlete afforded the opportunity to love water polo. While we may share differences in how that will be achieved, we’re all striving for the same goals and I encourage everyone to take on board the example of our athletes in espousing the Think Act Play values to encourage and support a positive community.

Wishing everyone throughout the Water Polo community a very happy holidays and we are excited to see what 2019 has in store. I look forward to celebrating our great sport in Brisbane this January at the Australian Youth Water Polo Championships and encourage everyone to also get behind our Aussie Sharks and Stingers as they take on Japan during the event (click here for more details).

Thomas Whalan

President

Water Polo Australia