The newly appointed Development Committee met for the first time this year last weekend at the EuroHockey head office in Brussels for an insightful session.
The committee welcomed 12 new members who took part in a productive first, taking in a wide range of development angles and also allowed an extensive chance to network around shared experiences.
In Thursday morning’s session, the committee heard from French Hockey Vice President Cathelijne Rockall about the development of their legacy plans post Paris 2024.
Welsh Hockey Development Director Joe Gage shared insight from the new strategy set to be released by Hoci Wales while Gizem Karaali explained the vision for an upcoming new strategic period for Türkiye.
Following in the afternoon, special guest Eline van Zinnicq Bergmann from the KNHB shared the Dutch federation’s work on how to inspire, integrate, and celebrate volunteers to develop club hockey.
A self-led session followed which allowed each nation to share what they though a “great national association” should look and feel like and they passed this information into a final session led by EuroHockey’s Tom Pedersen-Smith.
Mekala Osborne is one of the newcomers to the committee having come through Scotland’s Lead the Way volunteer programme, subsequently joining Scottish Hockey where she is now a regional manager.
She said of her motivations to be part of the committee: “When applications to join came along, the criteria, aims and what they wanted from it fit my role perfectly.
“It gives a great crossover to what we are currently doing in Scotland and bring it to other nations, showcase what we are doing and then learn from those other nations.
“Programme-lead for the volunteer programme she started on and managing it which is a nice full-circle moment. It is great to look at other nations to see what they do for upskilling their personnel.
Osborne has now gone “full-circle” to head up the Lead the Way programme and so the KNHB presentation on volunteerism was of particular relevance.
It covered clubs from 6 members up to 3,500 and everything in between to see how to reach the right people.
“It was really inspiring, simple things to try and lots of learning we can take back to Scotland.
“[Eline]made it very relatable, basing it on our own clubs and how we ask them in a form ‘would you like to be a volunteer?’
“It is an example of the value these sessions can bring organisations, particularly in the Scottish context as volunteer recruitment and retainment is high on the agenda.”
Reflecting on the new committee’s first session, Tom Pedersen Smith, EuroHockey Head of Strategy said it is an exciting term ahead with the right mix of experiences in place.
“The terms of reference for all the EuroHockey committees that our executive board signed off in 2019 have a minimum quota of 30% for gender.
“We continue to strive forward and last Thursday, we brought together the development committee for their new two year cycle.
“With the support over the years from our executive board past and present including Peter Elders, Carola Morgenstern-Meyer, Marijke Fleuren, Marcos Hofmann and Angus Kirkland we now have a development committee with 50/50 gender balance.”
** To find out more about many of the facets which fall under EuroHockey’s development committee, go to the EuroHockey Institute’s page here
