A contributing factor to that success has been the Event Leadership course offered within NZ Diploma in Sport, Recreation, and Exercise (Level 5) where ākonga are tasked with managing sports events while working with high school students.

Unitec alumnus, Dhanny Oud, currently a Development Officer with Badminton Oceania, is one of many successful graduates who have come through the diploma.

Since 2019, Unitec has run an annual Disc Golf Tournament, initially on the grass area behind Building 48 at the Mt Albert campus. In 2022, the course was moved offsite to the Woodhill Forest course in Waitakere.

Disc golf is played much like traditional golf. Instead of a ball and clubs, however, players use a flying disc, or frisbee. The sport was formalised in the 1970s, and shares similar rules to traditional golf where the object is to complete each hole in the fewest number of strokes (or throws in disc golf). The sport is usually played on a course with nine or 18 holes, each consisting of a teeing area and target.

Six ākonga from the 2025 Event Leadership class completed a tournament with around forty Year 12 students from Mt Albert Grammar School on 16 May. The games concluded with a sausage sizzle and prize giving. Three additional students from the programme were supporting the class as volunteers.

“The first event went fairly well, with room for subsequent discussion and learning, and improvements made for the second run,” says lecturer, Anna Bassett.

“We are looking forward to putting the learning into practice this Friday when we return to Woodhill to run a tournament for Year 13 Avondale College students.”

The Event Leadership course provides students with the principles and concepts of sport event-management. Students develop foundational knowledge and practical skills to plan and implement community-based sport events.

By the end of this course, students will have gained new skills: co-ordinating the planning and delivery of an event using basic project-management skills, developing key business and marketing strategies for a real or scenario-based event concept, and display an ability to work independently and collaboratively.

Bassett acknowledged the strong support of The Disc Shop New Zealand since the first year of the course with the provision of equipment and their expertise.