The Board was very pleased last week to announce and welcome UniSport Australia’s new Chief Executive Officer, Mark Sinderberry. We had a large number of quality applications, and I believe this speaks volumes about the value of our organisation and its crucial role in higher education and sport in Australia. ​​

When I look back on 2018, I immediately think of the success of National Div 1 and 2. As I said in my last update, I appreciate how quickly members and students alike have embraced the Nationals concept.

While Div 2 was back in early July, Div 1 was held in late September, and as Don has previously said, we received excellent feedback about how the events were delivered, and also how we could improve. The exposure we got at Div 1 especially was amazing, and certainly we could not have done this without the great effort of staff and volunteers. I cannot thank them enough.

This year I’ve had the pleasure of representing UniSport Australia when visiting member universities across the country. I’ve found every university is distinctive in its own way, but the one thing we all have in common is our passion for sport and for enhancing the student experience. I am very pleased we are developing relationships with many National Sporting Organisations; recently we announced our partnership with Swimming Australia and since then of course they have endorsed our Nationals Div 1 as an official part of Swimming Australia’s high performance program. The National Basketball League (NBL) is the same - the NBL and UniSport have partnered up to strengthen a pathway to a national university league that will benefit university basketball in Australia.

Finally, on behalf of the board I would like to thank all the UniSport staff for their hard work during the past year. I would also like to especially thank our members for your support, and I wish everyone great success in the future and I hope you are all looking forward to whatever next year brings as much as I am. Enjoy the upcoming Christmas break with family and friends. Stay safe, and I look forward to seeing you all in 2019.

All the best,

Dave