On behalf of the entire board of Diving Queensland, thank you for sharing your feedback via our Community Survey. A special thank you to those who reached out directly to board members or to our CEO Lisa via phone, email, or in person to share additional perspectives.

The new 2024/25 Diving Queensland Board met in person for the first time on Saturday (the morning of the School Sports Trials). We explored your input from the survey, and feedback received the past few months… and based on that set our priorities for the next 12 months.

Before we get into the priorities, lets dive into a quick summary of your feedback in the 2024 Community Survey:

• How long have you been involved in Diving in Queensland?
  • New to the sport in the past 12 months: 7%
  • Started during or after COVID disruption: 50%
  • From before COVID disruption: 43%

• How likely are you recommend the sport of diving to others?
  • Net Promoter Score +38
• • Detractors (Score 1-6): 11%
  • Passives (Score 7-8): 39%
  • Promoters (9-10): 14: 50%

• How did you originally get involved in Diving?
  • QAS Testing, or the YouFor32 program
  • Transitioning from Gymnastics due to interest, injuries, or coaching challenges
  • Trial Days and Come and Try Classes
  • Adult Diving classes

• What positive impacts does Diving have?
  • Fitness and Health
  • Confidence and Personal Development
  • Happiness, Enjoyment, Friendships
  • Mental release (particularly for Adult Divers)
  • Professional opportunities and Achievements
  • Learning and experiencing new things through coaching, judging, and volunteering

Whilst the feedback was generally positive, there is certainly room for improvement in the sport across several aeras.  The key themes we want to acknowledge from your feedback include:

• Lack of communication and transparency – from DQ, Clubs, and Coaches to parents
• Safety, on three fronts:
  • those that must drive long distances to engage in the sport
  • coach to diver ratios to ensure safe training environments
  • supporting diver mental health
• Facilities
  • Alternative venues particularly for outdoor facilities subject to weather or those where bookings for other events supersede Diving
  • Training time availability at existing venues
• Diving vs cost of living pressures
• Concerns re: favouritism or bias
• Tension or division between/across clubs and elite pathways
• Lack of understanding of pathways:
  • From “learn to dive” to novice and age group diving
  • From competitive diving to high performance programs
  • From high performance programs into age group diving
  • Progressing into a coaching pathway
  • Progressing into a technical official pathway
• Lack of competitions

2024/25 Priorities

Whilst our mission at Diving Queensland remains the same (to encourage, promote, advance, govern and administer the sport of Diving in and throughout Queensland, for the benefit of all participants), we wanted to put more focus on the things we could do this year to deliver on that mission. Whilst addressing some of the issues, and amplifying the strengths identified in your feedback.

… and because we love diving… we named our focus for 2024/25 – 105C

As a board, we brainstormed and discussed several initiatives that Diving Queensland could deliver to bring 105C to life. Some are still in their infancy and will require development over the next few months. We look forward to sharing more with you in the future.

There where three initiatives that the board committed to deliver in the short term:

Communication:
“Below the surface” – a regular (monthly) online / in person event series focused on supporting athletes and parents to navigate their Diving life. Topics will help both those new to the sport, and those who have been engaged for a long time.  For example:

• “Judging 101”, to give parents and athletes a deeper understanding of how our technical officials score dives in competition
• “Life as a Diver” – a conversation with Ethan Warren, Olympic and Commonwealth Games Diver (and guests) talking about the highs, lows, and lessons learned as a diver
• “Progressing through the Diving Queensland Levels Program” – providing parents and new divers an understanding of each step of our learn to dive pathway

The first Diving Queensland “Below the surface” event will take place in late June/early July – watch out for the registration link in your inbox.

Championing:  
“Divers Leadership Committee”. The heart of our sport is our divers, and we want to make sure that they can have their say on issues that matter to them. 

In parallel, we want to create more opportunity for divers to act as leaders and role models across our sport.  To lead by example, at club level, at competitions, or on tour whilst representing Queensland. And develop leadership and communication skills that could transfer to further education or work.

This will be a voluntary group, with which we will seek representation of recreational and competitive divers from all clubs and the elite pathway. The committee will meet every few months in person, combined with a social event to create connection across the group.

More details will be shared in June.

Championing:
Celebrating our Volunteers. This week is National Volunteers week.  Diving, like many community sports relies on the selfless commitment of volunteers to create a safe and encouraging environments for all.

The board would like to acknowledge all our volunteers. No matter how big or how small your contribution – at club or at DQ level.

To celebrate your support of our sport, we plan to host a volunteer appreciation drinks in the next few weeks – we will share the details shortly.

It is early days, and there is a lot of work ahead of us, but we are confident that these initiatives (and others in development) will help us deliver on our mission this year.

If you have any questions, or would like to get involved – make sure you reach out to Lisa Wright, our Diving Queensland CEO – lisa@divingqld.org.au

Regards,

 

The Diving Queensland Board
(Paul, Danielle, Sara, Ethan, Isaac, Ellie)