“The fish rots from the head down” is a Chinese (although some say Turkish) proverb often used to denote how leadership (in any type of organisation) is the determining factor in the success of that organisation.

The theory behind the proverb is described in some detail by Bob Garratt in his best-selling book titled ‘The Fish Rots from the Head: The Crisis in our Boardrooms – Developing Crucial Skills of the Competent Board Member’.

In his simple words “the buck starts and stops with what occurs in the boardroom”, and our world of sport is no different.

Sport Northland, in it’s role of leading and supporting the sport sector across the region, has attempted to prevent this ‘rotting’ from occurring through the implementation of a number of initiatives designed to improve the capability and capacity of sport governance in Northland.

A Northland Sport Governance Forum was established in early 2017 to bring together the chairs of the 14 Northland regional sports organisations who operate governance boards. They meet quarterly to discuss solutions to the similar challenges that they all face and in doing so to improve the overall governance of their organisations.

Initiatives emanating from this forum have included:

• Sports Governance 101 and 201 development training for board members
• A central database of potential board members wanting to stand for sports board in Northland
• A two-yearly ‘board diversity’ survey; the results of which have demonstrated that the 14 boards (+ the Sport Northland board) are now more diverse, including an increase in female (40 to 47%), Māori (15 to 19%) and under 45 years (14 to 24%) representation since 2017

Sport Northland trialled a Board Intern programme in 2019, recruiting 2 interns for an initial 12 month pilot. The aim was to expose 2 people who have a passion for sports governance (but had not yet gained governance experience or skills) to good governance over the course of a year by sitting in on Sport Northland board meetings and then to take what they learn onto other sport sector boards in Northland.

The idea was that the Interns would have all the rights of full board members, including attendance and contributions at all meetings, but have no voting rights or director liability.

The 2019 pilot saw Michelle Boyce-Bacon and Diana Piggott recruited as the inaugural Interns and Board Chair Nigel Brereton was delighted with the success of the pilot. “Both Interns gained crucial skills and knowledge about sports governance, and the board has gained wider and more diverse perspectives in return. The biggest outcome was that both went on to volunteer in governance positions, with Michelle now a full board member of three Northland regional sports organisations – Northland Basketball, Northland Bowls and Bike Northland – an outstanding result for sports governance in Northland and a win/win all round.”

The Sport Northland board has now made the Intern programme a permanent part of its operation, with two more Northlanders (Kathryn Candy and Erin Fowler) graduating from the programme at the end of last year and another two (Carina Dickson and Lian Tovine-Passmore) currently on-board as Interns.

More success from the initiative has resulted with Erin taking the skills and knowledge from the programme to the Northland Athletics and Gymnastics Trust board and Kathryn being recently elected as the new chair of the Whangarei Netball board, and as such is also now a member of the previously mentioned Northland Sports Governance Forum.

All these initiatives are designed to help stop the fish from rotting at all by contributing to strong and healthy sports governance in Northland.