The Executive Council is responsible to the Board for the day to day management of the Association and comprises the following members:
Executive Director – James Mitchell
Coaching Managers – Dean Kelburn and Jacqui Frost
We are pleased to announce this role has been filled as a shared partnership between Jacqui Frost and Dean Hepburn.
Jacqui has a long association with polo. Most of you will know her as Frosty’s wife or Liam’s
mum. Currently she is working with Kiwi in the role of Coaching Coordinator. She has a
degree in Accountancy, and then gained a Post Graduate Diploma to become a primary
school teacher. She is a team leader and specializes in developing and delivering resilience
programs. Jacqui is also currently undertaking further education in educational
psychology.
Jacqui’s passion is in empowering teams and in developing people.
Dean is a graduate of the Bachelor of Recreation and Sport at E.I.T Hawke’s Bay, where he
focused intensely on sports coaching and the development of sport. While there his focus
was on road cycling where he helped develop and deliver the Introduction to Road Cycling
program for Cycling New Zealand. He also manages and coaches endurance athletes from
elite to juniors and has helped develop junior cycling within Hawke’s Bay. Dean has also
coached hockey and studied the biomechanics of sports including basketball which
correlates well into canoe polo. He currently coaches canoe polo at Havelock North High
School, with managing and coaching the Senior B boys and assists the Senior Girls coaching
team as an endurance coach.
Dean’s passion within this role is to develop technical coaching capability and deliver a
pathway for coaching development.
Together, we want to ensure our coaches are well resourced and supported at every level of
Canoe Polo. Ensuring that we have a nationwide network of coaches that have a culture of
learning and development is a key component of this. We are looking forward to working
alongside our coaches to develop these areas.
Jacqui and Dean can be contacted on nzcpacoaching@gmail.com
Communications Manager – Kat Graham
Canoe Polo plays a large role in Kats life, supporting her husband Jed at national and international competitions. Kat has been supervising the Paddle Blacks website and social media for a few years. She also manages the communications and social media at her work. Kat has never played Canoe Polo, instead prefers to watch and socialise from the side lines.
Kat is able to be contacted on nzcpacomms@gmail.com
Competitions Manager – Jed Graham
Funding Manager – Rachael Macky
High Performance Manager – Greg Oke
This is a new role within NZCPA and Greg will be on a 1 year term. The reasoning for the 1 year term is so we can develop the role, set processes and have a clear structure in place before we then go through the formal advertising process in 2021.
Greg has an abundance of experience in canoe polo and other sports:
– Head Coach FAHS 7 years
– Coached Kiwi teams A, B and C grade
– Selector for NZCPA current and past
– Board Director NZCPA ( 4 years)
– Development officer Kiwi Canoe Polo
– Coached Centrals Development
– Regional Referee.
– Current B Grade open player (Vikings Rust)
– Involved with the Olympic and Commonwealth games from a health provider and athlete services role 2004, 2006 ,2008, 2010 games
– Represented NZ at Slalom and White water racing
– Rep NZ Canoe Polo Masters. Oceania
Greg has a passion for high performance sport and its growth and delivery.
He is keenly aware of the needs of developing players at all ages and has a strong understanding of the pressure at high performance levels.
He is committed to clarifying our current framework and looking at the needs of our athletes and sport into the future.
He is open to dialogue with all stakeholders in this process and believes in a strong, representative, ethical and inclusive culture that underpins our program.
He believes in providing a pathway for our athletes to excel on the world stage with no barriers.
Greg would like to see Canoe Polo in the Olympic Games as a core canoe sport with NZ strongly represented in the medals.
Greg is able to be contacted on nzcpahp@gmail.com
Refereeing Manager – Darren Austin
This referee manager role is about the process of managing our referee qualification process and other referee administration and directing people to the right place. This role is not about the rules.
Darren is a Senior Football referee and an International Taekwondo referee so it made sense after his oldest child Kase and now his youngest daughter having both been actively involved in the sport at a national level, he felt the timing is right to share his experience and knowledge with NZCPA.
Darren is able to be contacted on nzcpareferee@gmail.com
Schools Manager – Kelly Hepburn
Squads Manager – Meryn Hinton
