Auckland, New Zealand, February 6, 2015 – The Oceania Volleyball (OZVA) board met in Auckland to advance their ambitious development plans across the largest geographic zone in world volleyball.

Oceania Volleyball’s President Craig Carracher presided over the two-day meeting, which ended on Friday. In his opening speech, Carracher said, “We are very proud of the hard work of all 23 of our members in Oceania over the past 12 months. With the support now of Asian Volleyball Confederation and FIVB, we are executing a volleyball events program at world class level to support our world class athletes and at the same time introducing competitions and development programs to achieve sporting and cultural developments and change in our region.”

Following are the major new initiatives for the Pacific Islands announced in the meeting.

1. A new beach volleyball sub zonal championship across the three sub zonal groups in Oceania will commence in 2015, feeding into a new format for the Oceania Championships 2015 following the successful hosting of the Championships at Manly Beach, Australia last November.

2. A new format for indoor volleyball which utilizes the results from the Pacific Games scheduled for Papua New Guinea in June 2015 to identify the top teams to play Australia and New Zealand in the Oceania Volleyball Championships Final Series late in 2015.

3. The introduction and endorsement of a new “community coaching program” developed in Vanuatu to introduce coaching skills to the Pacific Islands as an introduction to the Level 1 Coaching Courses.

4. The establishment of a new secretariat for OZVA based in Cook Islands to complement the role of Volleyball Australia in Canberra and Sydney.

5. Confirmation that all 23 members of OZVA will develop a National/Territory Strategic Development Plan that aligns with the OZVA and Asian Volleyball Confederation Development Plans approved in 2014. OZVA will support all members to prepare and execute their development plans to deliver volleyball opportunities in every member federation of OZVA.

6. Endorsement of the proposal to include beach volleyball in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018.

The Board congratulated the new administration of the AVC Headquarters in Bangkok and recognized the work of Volleyball Australia in hosting the Beach Volleyball Continental Cup Phase 1 event and the 2014 Oceania Beach Volleyball Championships.

“Oceania offers to world volleyball a spiritual home for beach volleyball, with a backdrop of palm trees and diverse island cultures across the Pacific. Our success in Asia with the top women’s and men’s beach volleyball teams and contributing 50% of the Asian representation for the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships to be held in The Netherlands this year, Oceania is a platform for regional and world beach volleyball,” Carracher said.

“With Australia hosting the World League and the World Women’s Grand Prix Finals (Group 3), Oceania will again organise some of the great world volleyball events in 2015. We will use this opportunity to progress sour sport, both indoor and beach volleyball, across our region,” he concluded.