AHF - Board

Board Members

President

Paul Smith

Email : director3@handballaustralia.org.au

Paul comes from a strong legal background and is currently a member of the Queensland Judiciary, serving as a member of the Land Court of Queensland. He holds degrees in Law (1982) and Arts (1985) from the University of Queensland; was admitted as a Barrister in 1982; and received a Churchill Fellowship (1988). Paul was also awarded an Australia Day Achievement Medallion in 1995. He is a Fellow of the Austrian based Centre for International Legal Studies, and is a Harvard trained Mediator and Negotiator. Paul is a published author and has written numerous legal articles and been a keynote speaker at conferences throughout the world.

Paul has also been recently appointed to take up a short-term posting as a Visiting Professor at Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia in 2008, teaching law.

Paul has held a deep love of sport throughout his life. He was a founding member of the very successful Western Suburbs Hockey Club, Ipswich, in 1969; and had a long association with the development of hockey, particularly in Ipswich. He is a Life Member of the Ipswich Hockey Umpires Association and a past long term Vice President of Ipswich Hockey. He played key roles in the multi $M redevelopment of Ipswich Hockey, and in 2001 was awarded a Queensland Hockey Association Award of Merit.

Although a relative new-comer to Handball, as a keen sports follower Paul has watched and admired the skills in the game over many decades. Even though he is now on the “wrong side” of 50, Paul highly enjoys playing social handball as a goalie, and he has a real passion for bringing the game to the youth of Australia. He is founding President of Western Saints Handball Club, based in Ipswich and the Western Suburbs of Brisbane. He serves on the Executive of QTHA, and was appointed as a Director of AHF in 2007.

Paul brings to the AHF a wealth of experience, not only in sports administration and the law, but also in dealing with government. Prior to his judicial appointment, Paul held the very senior position of A/Deputy Director General, Premier’s Department, Queensland and was responsible for policy co-ordination across all areas of the Queensland Government.

Secretary General

Lee Schofield

Email: sec-gen@handballaustralia.org.au

Lee currently resides in Sweden due to his roles with Swedish 1st Division club H65 Höör, where he plays for the Men’s Team and is an Assistant Coach with the Women’s Team. Lee has been extensively involved in Australian handball since 1994 and aside from his current roles with the AHF and H65, highlights of his time in the sport include:

Player with the Australian Men’s Team at the 2000 Olympic Games
Player at the 1999 and 2003 World Championships
Head Coach of Australian Junior Handball Teams in 2005
Team Leader for Australian Women’s Team to 2005 World Championships

Away from handball Lee is a lawyer admitted to the High Court of Australia and the NSW Supreme Court. He has previously worked as a specialist ‘sports lawyer’ and currently working as an in-house corporate lawyer for a Swedish aircraft leasing company.

Elected - Director of Strategic Planning and Policies

Stephen Harbort

Email : director1@handballaustralia.org.au

Stephen has assisted in the visioning and strategic planning for the AHF which includes assisting states to transform strategy into practice and to protect the AHF through improved governance, and ensuring appropriated policies and procedures are in place.

Stephen's involvement with the AHF commenced as a state delegate from Queensland in 1993. He was voted in as Secretary General in 1996 and became Senior Vice-President in 2004, and Director ( Strategic Planning and Policies ) in 2006. He is the current AHF delegate to the Oceania Handball Federation and the Australian Olympic Committee.

He started up handball n Bundaberg and Toowoomba and was a founding member of the Wide Bay region. Stephen was elected as President of the Queensland Team Handball Association in 1992, a position that he currently holds as well as being an active referee and coach when time permits.

Stephen's most memorable moments were with the Olympics in Sydney 2000 and the East Asian Games in 2001 as well as leading a Men's tour to Hungary in 1998. He also presented Australia's bid for the 2004 IHF World Congress at the 2002 Congress in St Petersburg, Russia.

Stephen organised and conducted the 2002 Oceania Men's Qualification Tournament and has coached the Queensland Under 18 women's team to a win at the National Junior Championships.

He has extensive experience as a General Manager in business and as a Chief Financial Officer in large organisations. As well as experience in dealing with Government bodies and strong leadership skills supported by a Master in Leadership. He also is a Company Director Associate.

Elected - Director of Coaching and Officiating

Bronwyn Thompson

Email : director2@handballaustralia.org.au

Bronwyn is the director currently responsible for overseeing the Coaching and Officiating portfolios. Bronwyn began playing handball after seeing it at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. She has been playing for five years and working in administration and officiating at State level for four years. Previously she played representative level Water Polo.

Bronwyn holds a Master in Management (Arts Mgt), undergraduate qualifications in Journalism and media production and currently works in management for the NSW Department of Education and Training.

Scott Fearnside

New South Wales

Scott Fearnside is relatively new to the sport of Handball but brings with him over 35 years of Sports Administration in other sports such as tennis, cricket, netball, squash and school sports.

Away from sport, he is the Head of the Science Faculty at a selective Sydney High School and has been with the Department of Education and Training for about 30 years.

Apart from being both the President and Treasurer of the NSW Handball Association, Scott is also President of local cricket and tennis associations, President, Secretary and Registrar of Northern Districts Junior Cricket and Treasurer and Vice-President of NSW Hardcourt Tennis.

His ability as a Sports Administrator was recognised in 2000 when he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal and in 2004 with the Australian Government’s Sports Achievement Award. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Society of Sports Administrators.

Scott’s aim in Handball is to try to elevate and to develop the profile of the sport of Handball.

Dr Mark Dawson

Queensland

Mark came to Handball recently, following over 40 years active involvement in football (formerly known as soccer), firstly as a junior player, then following several injuries Mark took up refereeing to remain active in the sport, and was a senior referee for 22 years. Mark has always been actively involved in all of the sports that his three children have participated in thereby gaining has extensive administration experience at club, district and regional levels. Mark is currently the Director of Referees for Queensland Team Handball Association, and is an active Handball Referee.

Mark has over 25 years experience in industrial research and consulting, covering the food, water, environmental, pharmaceutical and indoor air quality areas. He and his business partner currently own and run a NATA accredited food testing laboratory in Brisbane employing 10 people.

Mark has been a contract lecturer in industrial microbiology at final year and post graduate levels at Massey University in New Zealand. He has also gained extensive technical and consulting experience in food safety, food microbiology testing, vaccine production research and development at a multinational biotechnology company, and commodity (raw sugar) production research and development, and has more than 50 articles published in scientific journals.

James McDonald

Victoria

James completed a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) with a major in Design at the University Newcastle in 2001. He currently works in one of the leading motor vehicle manufacturing companies as a Package Engineer, with responsibility for Vehicle Architecture as part of the Virtual Engineering Team in Product Development.

Aside from using in-depth knowledge which is technical in nature, James’ various employment positions involve superior project management, communication and negotiation skills with both internal and external stakeholders.

James has also held a Lecturer’s position in the University of Newcastle imparting knowledge on Industrial Design to students and inspiring them to express their designs via 2D drawings to manufacture stage.

All these attributes translate well into his involvement over the years with sports such as rowing, hockey, netball, cricket, motor sport and more recently in handball. In rowing, highlights of his achievements include receiving, in 2003, the inaugural Godfrey Tanner Memorial Award; President of the Newcastle University Boat Club, being a NSW Rowing Association Race Official and Vice President of the Newcastle Rowing Club. In hockey, he was a 1^st Grade Representative in the Newtown Senior Men’s Hockey Club, semi-finalists in the Geelong Hockey Association and major finalist in 1998 Newcastle Hockey Association Senior Men’s Association and being Silver Medallist in netball in the Eastern Australian University Games.

As luck would have it, James has recently become involved in handball. In 2007, he was the Competition Manager of Victoria Vase which is the Melbourne Metropolitan Women's Handball Championship. He was also the Competition Manager of the 2008 Australian University Championships and subsequently being elected as the Foundation President of Handball Victoria. AHF is pleased to recognise James as a Delegate in the Australian Handball Federation and congratulates him for revitalising and providing much-needed leadership and direction for handball in Victoria.

Rikke Petersen

Western Australia

Rikke is from Perth in Western Australia where she has been involved in various roles on the board of Handball West since 2006.

Rikke has played handball for most of her life. Since starting at 7 years of age in Denmark, she played at the top level in her junior years for Roar Roskilde and represented her state. Before leaving Denmark for a trip around Australia in 1996, she played in Roskilde's team making the Danish Women's Handball League that year.

During her first few years in Australia she had a few brief appearances on the Australian women's team in 1998 and 1999 and represented Australia in a tournament in Germany. These days she regards herself as "semi" retired from the court, although she still enjoys playing beach handball at her local beach in Scarborough.

In her "other life", Rikke is married to Ashley and has 2 little girls and she is a lawyer in Blake Dawson's Perth office, specialising in energy, resources and projects.

State / Territory

Name

Australian Capital Territory

Anke Winnig

South Australia

Anne - Gaelle Morin

All nominated State Directors can be emailed on the address below. Please ensure your email is correctly addressed to one of the above State Directors:

statedirectors@handballaustralia.org.au

Media and Public Relations Officer

Violi Calvert

Email : Public.Relations@handballaustralia.org.au

In October 2006, Violi accepted the position of Media and Public Relations to assist the AHF Board in its long-term goal of raising the profile and furthering the success handball in Australia. She is inspired by the passion of the players, officials and those who work hard for the good of the sport.

Violi developed a keen interest in handball following the involvement and success of her son Bevan in the sport. Prior to watching Bevan play in the Junior National Championships in 2001, Violi and her husband John did not know anything about the sport. From that time, both of them became avid fans and have tried not to miss watching and helping out in club competitions, state, national and world championships.

In fact, together with their older son, Timothy, John and Violi attended the 2005 Men's World Championship in Tunisia and the 2007 Men's World Championship in Germany to support the Australian Team. During the 2007 Men's WC, Violi wrote diary notes for the AHF website to share her observations on games, people and places, aside from her usual liaison with the media and public at the venues where the Australian Teams played. Likewise, John and Violi attended the 2007 Women's WC held in France to support the Australian Women's Team. Violi also wrote diary notes for the AHF website during the Women's WC, with John acting as Photographer. She enjoys good team work with the Webmaster who helps with editing, formatting and uploading of the articles and the diary notes. [The diary notes are now in the Archive section of the website].

Violi is hopeful that with the help of the handball community, the profile of the sport would be further lifted. You can assist to achieve this by:

   a)      forwarding to her any handball "stories", announcements, initiatives, developments, news, biographical
        information (for example new players, from overseas or other sports who may have a high profile,
        joining handball). The aim is to feature some of these on the AHF web site and to promote other stories
        to the media.

b) States branches to forward their existing media contacts and those who do the occasional handball story
in any media, so that press releases are sent to all handball media around Australia.

c) becoming part of “Media Watch” to keep an eye out for stories about handball or handball players (whatever the source) that may appear in the media, both locally and overseas.

Over the years, Violi has worked in corporate governance and ethics areas. She has been involved in community organisations such as the North Shore Filipino-Australian Association which are involved in cultural, sports and welfare projects.