It’s been another great year for netball in Taranaki, capped off by our senior women’s representative coach Che Tamati being honoured in the new Netball New Zealand coaching awards.

His Community Coach of the Year award was an acknowledgement of his work for netball and success with the Greymouth Petroleum Taranaki Open Representative team.

We have also seen our finest young players continue to win recognition at high levels, most recently when Paris Mason, Brooke Neilson and Paige Neilson were invited to a five-day National Development Camp at St Peters College in Cambridge to start on January 19.

Our courts at Waiwhakaiho have been re-covered and new floodlights installed, and we have kept a close watch on the Clifton park upgrade, which will provide top quality facilities for netball soon at Waitara.

We also watched the Pulse enjoy an excellent season, no doubt spurred on by their pre-season visit to Taranaki where the players spent a lot of time with young players and also took part in a well-attended exhibition game.

As ever, there is still lots of work for Netball Taranaki to do and after hearing the points of view of focus groups, a Regulation Review Group will come up with recommendations for change aimed at making 2018 even better.

The staff and board of Netball Taranaki, including those who gathered this week for our team photo, wish you all a safe and enjoyable festive season.