Brent Eastwood's Sport Thought: Northland Sports House nine years on

In this week's Sport Thought, Sport Northland's Brent Eastwood goes into the background of Whangārei's sporting hub, the ASB Northland Sports House at Kensington Park. Photo / Supplied

It's hard to believe it was nine years ago that Sport Northland and a host of sports organisations moved into the ASB Northland Sports House at Kensington Park.

The facility, built over the top of the Northland Table Tennis Centre, has provided a unique solution for Table Tennis Northland (who would probably otherwise have needed to replace their roof by now) and Sport Northland, who have ended up with a purpose-built administrative base, including office space for Northland Regional Sports Organisations (RSOs) to also be housed.

The Sports House has enabled Sport Northland and the RSOs to work together in an inclusive culture and environment, which has promoted better collaboration, communication and sharing of best practice between all the organisations involved.

In addition to Sport Northland, seven organisations are now permanently based in the ASB Northland Sports House: Rugby League Northland, Netball Northern, Squash Northland, Northland Basketball, Golf Northland, Hockey NZ and Parafed Northland.

Northern Football Federation is also based in the wider facility over at the ASB Leisure Centre, while Sport Northland also manage a position for Bike Northland based at the Sports House.

In addition, many others use the hot desk facility available, which enables them to "plug-in" to work from the office when they are in town (this is especially helpful for those organisations with staff not based permanently in Northland but who regularly work from the region, such as Aktive Auckland).

More active recreation and sports organisations use the Pub Charity meeting rooms within the facility, which provide a much-needed quality space for them to hold meetings, workshops and functions at no cost. The board room, in particular, is booked out most nights by sports organisations (who do not have a base office of their own) to hold their regular meetings.

Back in 2010, it also brought the entire Whangārei staff of Sport Northland back under one roof, something that had been missing since the main office of the organisation had to be shifted into the Whangārei CBD back in 1998 (as a result of the demolition of the old member's stand at Kensington Park to make way for the redevelopment of the ASB Leisure Centre).

And while bringing a stated goal of Sport Northland's (one that dates back over 25 years) to fruition is particularly satisfying, I'm sure the real value of the facility is that the current tenants are satisfied with the set-up and benefits this brings to each sport by being based in a professional sports environment day in and day out.