In early March, members of the Netball SA Development team traveled down to the State’s South-East to connect face to face with affiliated associations and clubs, and continue to provide support to members of our netball community.
Development Coordinators Lucy Herde and Caitlin Sullivan spent four days moving throughout the region and were pleased to be able to meet with representatives from all four associations in the area.
Caitlin spoke to the importance of these types of visits.
“Regional visits provide a great opportunity to meet with key netball people in the area who are so passionate about our sport, and be able to listen to some of the experiences that are unique to the netball community in the South East,” Caitlin said.
A key component of the trip was Netball SA CEO Bronwyn Klei joining Caitlin and Lucy in meeting with association Presidents and Secretaries, who were able to have robust conversations about sport in the area, as well as to chat all things netball.
Moorak Primary School were also kind enough to host Lucy and Caitlin in running clinics, with every class in the school from Kindergarten to Year 6 getting a taste of netball. They also then visited Mount Gambier High School to take the dedicated netball class in a bit of a different session – Walking Netball!
The students enjoyed the different take on our sport (but were very happy to return back to ‘traditional’ netball afterwards). MGHS have been involved with Netball SA in the past as a part of the Specialist School Program, and Netball SA are keen to grow this connection moving forward.
Caitlin also introduced Mount Gambier Netball Association to our Walking Netball program – watch this space for something coming to the South East in the future.
Another focus of the trip was the opportunity to meet in person with association and club committee members – Caitlin and Lucy visited the KNT club delegate meeting, were able to have dinner with the MSENA club presidents, as well as catch up with both MGNA and the WBNA association committee members.
Rounding out the trip, Lucy and Caitlin spent the remainder of the time travelling the region and were able to meet with clubs who are hopeful in getting facility upgrades underway. It was such a great way to get an outlook of the netball landscape, and assist some clubs in their plans for obtaining facility funding.
Thank you to all club and association personnel who made the time to meet with Netball SA staff over the week, such a great way to continue building netball in the region and we look forward to continuing face to face connections across the state.
