Quadball Australia underwent a process of Strategic Planning, with the goal to produce a Strategic Plan for 2020-2025 for the organisation, with opportunities for the whole community to contribute to this process. The Strategic Plan aims to encapsulate the values and mission of the organisation, establish priorities for development, and understand what is most important for Quadball Australia to be doing for the community. Find out more about what’s going on and how you can contribute here.
Latest Updates
In 2020, Ajantha Abey, Alison Newton and Jamie Turbet developed the 2020-2025 Quadball Australia strategic plan in consultation with members. This was developed after discussions raised in the Sydney Strategic Forum (“Have your say on the future of quidditch in Australia - Strategic Planning”) and the six online strategic seminars hosted in 2020.
You can read the Strategic Plan here: 2020-2025 Quadball Australia Strategic Plan
What is a Strategic Plan & Why do we Need One?
Over the last 10 years of operation as quadball has grown in Australia, Quadball Australia largely operated to serve basic needs of the community - providing membership and insurance, trying to promote the sport at the national level, and running flagship events such as Nationals and State Shield, largely in an ad hoc manner.
Moving forward, as we aim to grow and improve the sport and the organisation, we need a long term plan for the sport and organisation in Australia. We must identify what the core values of the Australian quadball community are, and thereby identify what the primary mission of the organisation is and how we will go about achieving that over the next five years. The Strategic Plan sets a vision for what we want quadball to be like in the future, and provides a road map for how to achieve that vision, by setting priorities and goals and guiding decision making for the organisation.
Who is Involved in the Project?
The project was initiated by Eleonora Leopardi, who is the head of the Strategic Planning Initiative.
Jamie Turbet, former QA secretary and active member of the Australian quadball community, has also been involved in organising the process.
The project has also been done in close consultation and collaboration with Alison Newton, whose experience in strategic planning has been invaluable to producing the draft plans and facilitating the strategic fora.
We are also welcoming and encouraging input on the strategic planning process from every member of the Australian quadball community. The strategic plan is all about creating a road map for what we want the future of quadball to be and it is critical that everyone can share in that vision.
How Will the Process Work?
At Quadball Australia’s 2019 Annual General Meeting, Eleonora laid out a proposal to all delegates for a Strategic Forum and Strategic Planning process in 2020, that would be led and facilitated by herself and Quadball Australia, but driven by the community.
The process was then kick started at the first Strategic Forum, held in Sydney in February 2020, where a small group of community members came together to discuss ideas, visions, and values, through a series of sessions outlined below, in order to start putting together a very basic draft strategic plan.
Having assembled a first draft, the process will now involve further input from the rest of the community, who can contribute their own original ideas to discussion through online groups and fora, and can provide direct feedback on the document itself (see Latest Updates).
As we gain more feedback and ideas from the community and hold more forums throughout the year, we will be able to produce updated drafts, with the aim to have a finalised Strategic Plan by August 2020.
What Happened at the Sydney Strategic Forum?
The Sydney Strategic Forum was held over 2 days at the Brain and Mind Centre in February, facilitated by Alison, with the help of Jamie, Eleonora, and Ajantha.
Video recordings of most sessions are available via a playlist on the Quadball Australia YouTube channel, and audio recordings of these sessions can also be accessed via the Quadball Australia website here, and has been published through Apple Podcasts, so it should appear in most podcast streaming services for your convenience.
The document of live notes / minutes from the forum including images of all the posters and brainstorms and whiteboards etc. are also available here.
An overview of the sessions can be found on another page here. This is provided to help contextualise all of the recordings and for anyone who did not attend to understand how the strategic planning process started at the forum to result in the current draft plans.