By David

So we know Swimming New Zealand has been deregistered as a charity because the Charities Board studied SNZ’s accounts and rightly determined that 17 Antares Place was all about looking after two swim schools at the Millennium Institute and Wellington. To all intent and purposes the rest of us and the community benefits of swimming didn’t matter; were tolerated as social hangers on. Miskimmin wanted it that way and now his Swimming New Zealand, its Board and management have been found desperately wanting. The Charities Board did their job well. However it is gravely disappointing that the sport’s inadequate performance was detected by an organization outside of swimming. The Region’s and the membership of SNZ should have seen it long ago and should have put it right.

One of the key roles of an Annual Meeting is to consider the financial performance of the organization’s executive management and Board. The Annual Meeting is an important forum at which to question the Board about information contained in the Annual Accounts and ask about the direction the business will take in the future.

I am concerned that the 2014 Annual Meeting of Swimming New Zealand has come and gone and the SNZ Board was not properly asked to justify a poor set of accounts. It’s not as though there was a shortage of questions. Why is the membership of the sport declining? Why have swimming related costs been cut to ribbons? Why has spending on executives and their perks ballooned out of control? Why is the business so perilously dependant on one income stream? Why is the income generated by the organization’s core business so insignificantly small? Why has the organization’s swim school failed to produce an Olympic medallist? Why has swimming been struck off the list of registered charities?

Delegates from the Regions have a duty to protect the sport of swimming. These are serious questions. They should have been asked. They especially should have been asked by the delegates from Auckland. The largest stakeholder has a duty to assume the responsibility of leadership. It appears that did not happen. For years Auckland held SNZ to account. Has something changed? Has Auckland becomes a Wellington style rubberstamp; a limp tea towel in the management of a national sport. It appears as if 17 Antares Place may have the current Auckland Board on a secure and tight lead. If they do and Auckland is not strongly exercising its duty of leadership, the national organization is in deep trouble.

Oh, I forgot – the national organization is in deep trouble.

Many of the most disturbing features of the 2014 SNZ Accounts have been addressed in three previous Swimwatch posts. But there are other items of equal concern.

For example – why is it that spending on overheads accounts for 24% of SNZ’s income? Most “normal” businesses look to restrict this figure to between 10% and 15%. Swimming Australia for example spends 15% of its income on overheads. USA Swimming spends 12% on overheads. But here in New Zealand 24% of SNZ’s income disappears into a black hole called administration, motor cars, rent, governance, legal costs and the like. Shouldn’t someone at the Annual Meeting have asked about that? Do the Regions care anymore? And if they do care, why was the problem ignored?

Of equal concern is the fact that 78% of Swimming New Zealand’s outrageous overheads were staff costs – the cost of employing Renford and the busy band of pen pushers that populate 17 Antares Place. Swimming Australia does not show a breakdown of their staff cost, however the same cost at USA Swimming is a mere 55% of their total overheads. And I can’t imagine that the staff of USA Swimming are on the minimum wage. I do wonder if it occurred to anyone at the Annual Meeting to ask why the foreign imports at Swimming New Zealand appear to be costing us so much. Surely that question is of sufficient concern for someone to ask for an explanation.

But, if Swimming New Zealand’s costs are a concern, an analysis of SNZ’s income is also cause for alarm. We already know that membership fees (that’s SNZ’s core business) account for a miserable 6% of the organization’s income. For whatever reason or possibly through neglect, the core business of SNZ has almost disappeared. And surprisingly Australia is no better. USA Swimming, on the other hand, earn a healthy 54% of their income from membership fees. I would have thought Swimming New Zealand’s shameful and dangerous lack of “sales” income would have been of concern to some delegates at the Annual Meeting. But, it seems, no one cared. Certainly no one bothered to ask.

And what about income received from the tax payer? We know Swimming New Zealand rely on the government for 54% of their income. The New Zealand organization is a fully fledged state welfare beneficiary. The purpose of SNZ today is primarily to action Peter Miskimmin’s plans and spend his money on two swim schools in Auckland and Wellington. Swimming Australia is less dependent on its government. Never-the-less a worryingly high, 36% of their total revenue comes from the Australian tax payer. USA Swimming receives not one cent from the Federal Government. The American organization is stand-alone independent. Perhaps someone from the Regions should have asked the Swimming New Zealand’s gang of Institute of Directors what they are doing to wean the sport off government hand-outs.

Over five years Peter Miskimmin has paid $11,120,748 to keep the sport of swimming afloat. (Excuse the pun) Since 2010, $11 million has been poured into 17 Antares Place – for what? Can anyone tell me what $11 million has bought? And Mazda SUVs is not the right answer. How is the sport any different today than it was in 2010? I doubt that any Swimwatch reader’s club has received one penny of the eleven million. I know my club is as stand-alone as it was in 2010. The grass roots of swimming have received no benefit from Miskimmin’s $11 million. Think of it this way – if the $11 million was yours, would you be happy with what Swimming New Zealand has done with your money? Is the sport clearly better off for the investment of your cash? For 99% of the members, is the sport any different today than it was in 2010? A few hangers-on at 17 Antares Place have done very well but the sport, for most of us, has not changed at all. If another $11 million was yours, would you be planning to spend it for the same result through to 2019? I certainly would not.

Why? Because, what I do know, is that $11,120,748 could have bought 92 new class rooms; could have paid the wages of 74 more nurses; could have financed 3177 cataract operations, 585 hip replacements, 55 new ambulances or three fully equipped rescue helicopters. New Zealand would be a better place if the money we wasted on Swimming New Zealand had been used for any of these purposes. And do you know the real irony? Swimming in New Zealand would be no worse off. In fact swimming at the top would be a more honest, successful and healthier place for us all; free of the insufferable arrogance that has come with too much unearned money.

Am I alone in thinking it deeply ironic that Christian Renford found it perfectly acceptable to rip into the standard of New Zealand coaches when he first arrived in New Zealand? His interview on Radio Sport, on a subject he clearly knew very little about, was deeply insulting. Well, if Renford’s first set of accounts is representative of how well he does his job, he would be well advised to leave us alone. His own house is in need of major repair.

And, as we now know, Swimwatch is not alone. Swimming New Zealand has just been stripped from the Charities Registrar because of the figures used in this story. The Charities Registration Board clearly found the bias towards two swim schools in Auckland and Wellington to be way outside the proper purpose of a parent responsible for a national sport. Well done, the Charities Board. It is comforting to know that Miskimmin’s Swimming New Zealand is being held to account by someone. Shame on the Regions for not being equally vigilant; for not recognizing and doing something about the cancer that is raging through their sport. The opportunity should not be lost again.