Membership Benefits

Your fees help provide modern and accessible training for hundreds of coaches, officials, umpires and volunteers every year to develop their skills and knowledge and make playing netball possible for around 100,000 people across our state.

In 2019 alone, 381 new coaching accreditations were achieved, 193 achieved a national umpiring badge and 6 bench officials received accreditation.

Our Region visits for umpires and coaches, provides access to workshops for coach and umpire education and mentoring all delivered by Netball SA Coach and Umpire Developers.

Membership revenue helps us support the network of clubs and associations across South Australia and contributes to the development and support of programs, products and plans to help grass roots grow. This includes:

- Woolworths NetSetGO, the introductory program for netball that encourages children ages 5-10 to become involved and learn the netball basics. Approximately 5,000 children participated in Woolworths NetSetGO last year in South Australia.

- Social Netball. This product has been developed to support the already well established, traditional competition formats. Research shows that some Australians are looking for more flexible ways to be active and Social Netball is targeted at that group.

- Partnering in a study with Flinders University, “The Promotion and Engagement of Contemporary Sports for Girls and Young Women: Implications for Netball Participation.” This study is aimed at understanding the impact that increased sport offerings has had on participation by women and girls in traditional sport offerings, like netball and will assist Netball SA to better plan for the sports future.

- Supporting clubs and associations to use Netball Australia’s Play HQ platform. This provides the convenience of registering online and allows you to collect fees, create fixtures, check results and ladders and communicate with your players.

The Stakeholder Relations team also provide advice and support to clubs and Associations across the following areas:
- Complaint handling processes
- Governance (constitution, rules and policy review)
- Facility audits and development support
- Grant writing
- Member protection advice
- Play HQ support and resource development

If you’re ever unsure who to contact, reach out to the Stakeholder Relations team member for your region.

Your affiliation fees pay for your $20 million public liability insurance and personal accident insurance that comes with your membership. It also pays for insurance to cover clubs, associations, competitions, officials and volunteers. The major areas of cover within this policy are:

- Personal accident
- Public Liability
- Management Liability
- Travel Insurance
- Professional Indemnity
- Cyber

Your membership helps raise the awareness of netball in South Australia. A strong voice is critical in an increasingly competitive sporting landscape. We work hard to ensure netball is represented across all media including digital, radio, television and print platforms.  Netball is full of amazing and inspiring stories about our incredible community members. Your fees support our ability to promote and highlight those stories.  Netball SA also advocates for clubs and associations with all levels of government. Examples of this include letters of support for funding applications and writing to local members to support facility developments.

For many people, their first experience of netball is at school. Your membership helps support a school ambassador program where teachers can access free accreditation.

Your membership in addition to Sporting Schools funding enables our staff to train and support community coaches to provide an amazing first netball experience in schools and at the Adelaide Thunderbirds School Holiday Clinics. Last year alone we reached over 5,000 students across South Australia through Sporting Schools and over 1,200 through Adelaide Thunderbirds School Holiday Clinics.

We also offer the Thunder Cup competition during term 2 and 3 for primary school teams to participate together. These participants are then encourage to become ongoing players by distribution of information on joining our clubs.

Your fees contribute towards the cost of competitions, of which members of all ages and abilities compete in every season. This includes the Hospital Research Foundation Group Premier League, Country Championships, Thunder Cup. Even if you do not partake in these competitions, they are a big part of Netball SA’s remit and are important for the future health and growth of the sport.

You help provide the stepping stone for our state’s top talent from the Adelaide Thunderbirds Talent Academy to the Adelaide Thunderbirds.

We have athletes competing at all levels at the national stage from the National Championships to the Australian Netball Championships that underpins Suncorp Super Netball (SSN). You help support athletes from across South Australia who are selected into State programs with travel, medical and training support ensuring that the best talent can progress through the system regardless of where they are from.

South Australia are the current reigning champions in both the 17 and Under and 19 and Under age groups, as well as the Rubies (our Marie Little OAM Shield team). Your support of our pathways has contributed to South Australia’s strong position on the national stage.

We now have 9 South Australian born players playing in SSN (that’s 15% of the Australian born players in the competition). In 2019, another 6 South Australians were training partners to a SSN team - testament to all who play a role in nurturing the talent coming through South Australian pathways.

These are the athletes that then become role models and attract future participants to grow our sport.

You help keep our sport safe for all those that take part, particularly the young and vulnerable. Our work in safeguarding and integrity, through the development and implementation of our Member Protection Policy and the Integrity in Netball Framework, is subsidised by membership revenue.

A strong membership base also allows us to access to other funds, including both government and commercial funding. Diversifying our income sources is extremely important.

The South Australian Government rightly expects to see that State Sporting Organisations are investing in the sustainability and development of the sport, and by you – and thousands of others – choosing to have a relationship with Netball SA, we become a more reliable and trusted partner to invest in. This means we have more funds available to spend on grass roots.