Northland produces talent across all the sporting codes. I imagine it’s partly due to our unrivalled fine weather, allowing people to play on dry(ish) ground and in lovely sunshine for more months than other parts of the country.

It’s also down to the good range of grants available to nurture our sporting talent.

At the start of this month, 14 young Northland athletes received grants. They came from 10 different codes. Their Kauri Club funding came from the Northland Regional Sports Organisation and Sports Talent Development panel. The successful grant recipients are named here. Read their names, and watch as they excel in the coming decade.

Sports grants help our young athletes travel to events outside the region. Several have been selected to represent NZ in international competitions.

The Kauri Club also allocated money to the ASB Northland Secondary Schools Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year winners, who will be announced tomorrow at the 2015 ASB Northland Secondary Schools Sports Awards.

In December, there will be the Konica Minolta Northland Sports Awards, and the Educare Northland Sports Talent Hub development grants are ongoing.

It’s wonderful that High Performance Sport NZ, Konica Minolta, Educare, Northtec and Foundation North (formerly ASB Community Trust) are providing funding.

There’s no doubt the sporting and cultural talent found up here is equal to any other region and if you have a promising athlete in your family, there’s funding out there to nurture that talent. The Lottery Grants Board gives money to Sport NZ’s Northland programmes, the Far North District Council offers the SPARC Rural Travel Fund, there’s Whangarei’s own Oxford Sports Trust. The Lion Foundation has, within the past couple of years, given grants to support Northland cultural groups including a number of Northland Colleges, as well as Rugby League Northland, Northland Swimming Association, and soccer and bowls in the Far North.

Sport Northland gets assistance from Silver Fern Farm (2015 Silver Fern Farms Kaipara Sports Awards), Ray White sponsors the Hatea Loop Challenge and ASB sponsors the half-marathon at KeriKeri.

Grants also regularly come from the Tindall Foundation and Pub Charity.

The next round of Kauri Club grants will be made in April 2016, where the Northland Sports Talent Development panel will also assess applications for the 2016 intake of Educare Northland Sports Talent Hub sportspeople.

It all sounds like we’re nurturing Northland’s nascent talent. What do you think?