The 2025 New Zealand Secondary Schools Annual General Meeting will be held on Sunday 23 March 2025. This will be held at Lake Karāpiro .
In addition to confirming the date for the meeting we now also would like to call for the following:
Nominations close on Friday 9 February 2025 at 5.00pm.
Nomination are to be forwarded to Rebecca Milicich at [email protected].
The latest SGM is now underway! Here is the Agenda.
This SGM will be held on Friday 24 January 2025 by electronic postal ballot, which means Members can start voting as soon as they receive their ballot login by email.
Ballots went out on 29 November and there have already been dozens submitted. If your principal has not yet received their ballot please contact Rebecca Milicich
A Special General Meeting of the association was completed by Teams meeting yesterday:
"Any student who is a Year 14 will not be permitted to participate at the Maadi Cup* from 2025. Exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis following approval of an Independent panel. This panel will be made up of Principal representatives, who will assess the legitimacy of the student by taking into account factors such as academic need".
* it was confirmed this policy only applies to Maadi; not other NZSSRA Championships
Meeting attendees asked if the policy could be expedited. This can happen, through holding another SGM to implement such changes to the Rules and Regulations as are necessary to enforce the policy prior to entries opening for Maadi. A working group was established from attendees to develop the necessary remits to amend the Rules and Regulations.
Year 13 students should be advised the NZSSRA Rules could change between now and Maadi. If they return for Year 14 it might not be possible to compete at Maadi 2025.
The Schools Committee of the New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Association (NZSSRA) has sanctioned Hamilton Boys High School following an investigation and disciplinary process regarding breaches of NZSSRA rules and regulations at four of its regattas.
Hamilton Boys High School admitted:
Following the investigation, the School promptly admitted the breaches. In total there were 17 breaches, across 10 events in the Under 15 and Under 18 Novice boys' categories in these regattas.
In admitting the breaches HBHS Headmaster, Susan Hassall, has said:
"We were devastated to learn of the breaches and apologise unreservedly to all the schools participating in the regattas involved. The breaches do not reflect the school's approach to sport, and were, regrettably, the result of very poor judgment by one person in our rowing programme. Our rowing programme has grown significantly in recent years, and we clearly did not have sufficient systems in place to make sure such breaches do not occur. These breaches also occurred during the COVID period, which exacerbated the problem. We deeply regret the impact this has had on the students at other schools and can assure everyone that we are making significant changes to our rowing programme to make sure it never happens again."
The School has accepted the following sanctions, formally imposed on it by the NZSSRA Schools Committee:
In giving its decision, a spokesperson for the Schools Committee said:
"The breaches by Hamilton Boys High School were significant and affected a number of other schools and rowers. Suspension is the most severe sanction the NZSSRA can impose on its Member Schools. The conditional suspension provides Hamilton Boys High School with a warning that if it breaches the same rules again, all rowers at the School will be banned from competing at either a North Island Secondary Schools Championships or a Maadi regatta, even those rowers who were not at the School at the time or who row for it subsequently.
The sanctions imposed should serve as a reminder to all Schools that they must fully comply with the rules, no exceptions. In particular, those Schools with large rowing programmes must make sure they have all the necessary systems and checks in place to ensure entries and substitutions are made and done so in compliance with the rules".
There will be no further comment from NZSSRA or Hamilton Boys High School regarding this matter.
As responsible users of New Zealand's waterways all member schools need to be aware of the Didymo ("Rock Snot") bio-hazard. Schools should be proactive in their efforts to avoid the spread of this pest*. For more information see the Biosecuity New Zealand website.
"CHECK, CLEAN, DRY"
* Users of Lake Ruataniwha need to be especially vigilent as Didymo is confirmed in the Lake, fortunately SIR has an excellent washing programme in place to help members "check, clean, dry"
It is an unfortunate and little-known fact that NZSSRA lost the bulk of its records in an arson attack on a Member school in the nineties. So when we were contacted by rowing's Archivist, Evan McCalman, who was looking for Maadi regatta programmes to try and fill some gaps in the record we were unable to assist.
The missing Maadi Cup Regatta programmes, which are needed to complete the Archives set, are: 1970, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1980, 1982-1989 inclusive, and 1991.
These programmes are needed to establish with certainty when girls events began, to establish who were the winning schools (pre Jubilee and Dawn Cups), and thus the names of the winning crews.
If anybody can assist the effort to complete the archives by donating (or lending for copying and return) a programme from any of the listed Maadi regattas then that would be greatly appreciated. If you have one of these programmes please contact Evan McCalman: 35 Marine Parade, Eastbourne, phone 04-562 7154, or e-mail [email protected].
Please send an email to [email protected] if you have a school rowing related notice you would like considered for publication.
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