#ThisIsNetball

[thisisnetball]

July 2019

The month that #ChangedTheGame...

July 2019 was incredibly special. To be part of a major international sporting event on home soil truly was an unforgettable experience. From showcasing top female athletes, seeing superfans display such electrifying passion, worldwide media coverage and one incredible host city - Liverpool. The Vitality Netball World Cup 2019 united, empowered and inspired like never before. 

As part of the BSON we wanted to engage and capture the attention of as many people as possible -  old, young, families, individuals and use the excitement of the NWC to grow our Netball family. July kicked off with a Primary School U11 Netball World Cup themed festival, engaging over 40 children from some of the most deprived primary schools in Nottinghamshire who had never played netball before at West Notts College. After a morning of coaching, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago and Samoa battled in out on court with Samoa (The West Park Academy) taking home the gold medal. All eight teachers that attended said they learnt more about the game and felt more confident to get Netball up and running in their schools. 

Round 3 of the Derby Corporate Netball League had a NWC takeover, each business was allocated a country to represent for the evening, England (pictured below) took away best dressed and podium places were awarded to:

Jamaica | Cooper Parry

England | Flint Bishop

South Africa | Bates Weston

Engaging with local media 

The week of the NWC had finally arrived, after delivering 4 sessions, attending the 2019 Move More Derby Conference and supporting an ENgage Membership Registration evening at Nottingham City NC it was time to make my journey to Liverpool...but BBC Derby had other ideas! I never did make my train, but BBC Derby featured the launch of the NWC on the Sally Pepper Mid Morning Show and it was the start of a great new local media partnership. 

EN were invited back onto the show a further three times during the BSON - we talked all things NWC, raising the profile of Netball, as well as increasing awareness of all the local participation opportunities. I also had a great time chatting to BBC Sheffield and BBC Nottingham in an effort to keep raising the profile of our amazing sport, and tell our storey. 

The Vitality Netball World Cup 2019

A picture is worth a thousand words. 

Liverpool was certainly home to the best NWC to date, it was an awe-inspiring world-class event. All 16 teams played with immense skill and passion, they battled, they celebrated wins and were gracious in defeat - thrilling fans from all over the world. 

It wasn’t the fairy tale ending we all dreamt of for our Vitality Roses, but a podium finish and a bronze medal is an incredible achievement and powerful enough to continue to empower and inspire increased grassroots participation. Netball will continue to grow in popularity and won’t lose it’s place in the limelight. 

In an epic Closing Ceremony, the words of Clare Balding echoed around the M&S Bank Arena...

“Stand tall, be brave and take more risks.”

NWC Reflections

Yesterday, our Vitality Roses made a nation proud. As I sit here at the Jurys Inn on 22 July, part of me feels heartbroken that it’s suddenly all over - I’m not sure a word exists to summarise exactly what the last 10 days have bought to our nation, our sport and netball all over the world. Netball means so much to so many people, it is empowering, it is inspiring and it is life changing.

Liverpool has been such an incredible host city for the NWC, having seen both sides of a major international sporting event (as a member of EN staff and a fan) has been an absolute pleasure. On a personal note I was given the opportunity to manage a team of staff at our Fan Park for the first time, the interest from local media gave me the opportunity to continuously push myself out my comfort zone and use my passion for netball (and women’s sport) to inspire girls and women to get active.

The Biggest Netball Open Day 

The BNOD took place the day after the conclusion of the World Cup on 22 July.

So it was straight off the train and onto the court in Derby for me as I had the pleasure of hosting Bee Netball, Back to Netball and Walking Netball with an aim to drive participation through a celebration of our inspiring sport.

I couldn’t think of a better ending, to an incredible month. Over 50 people aged 5-65yrs took part in our BNOD, it truly was a great celebration of Netball and evidences how there genuinely is a version of the game for everyone. 

Our inboxes are filling, our netball family is growing and the future is exciting!

July key targets summary

Engaged 245 participants (75 new to netball)

£219.00 income surplus

2019/20 total to date: 799 participants (359 new to netball) and £3083.00 income surplus

[thisisnetball]

June 2019

The power of Walking Netball...

June got off to a great start as we hosted the annual Derbyshire Walking Netball festival on 2 June at Derby Arena. Over 100 ladies wiggled and giggled their way through the afternoon, full of laughter and Netball World Cup themed cake!

I’m busy delivering 3 Walking Netball sessions at the moment (Duffield WI, Ollerton, Chilwell) and now Ramadan has ended the women’s only Back to Netball in Derby is re-launching and I’m continuing to mentor Afsana, a participant-turned UKCC L1 coach. Round 2 of the Derby corporate netball league took place on Thursday 6 June at Derby High School, which saw a new business - HSBC take to court for the first time. 

Nottingham City Netball Club were successful in gaining Bronze CAPS accreditation. 

On Sunday 9 June England Netball were invited to be part of the activity zone at the Nature Valley Open, we had a brilliant day talking all things netball with hundreds of families. 

I visited the University of Derby, University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University to support the University Netball Officer (UNO) interview panels for 2019/20. 

More new sessions have launched, including Netball Now in partnership with Active South Derbyshire at Green Bank LC and Netball Now at Derby High School. 

ParaNetball

The 14 June saw the inaugural ParaNetball Schools Championship take place at Lee Westwood Sports Centre, NTU. Six schools took part including Joseph Whittaker from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire who finished in 5th place. It was a great day, giving many young SEN pupils the opportunity to engage in a competitive running team sport for the first time -  inspiring them to continue to engage with our wonderful sport.

Midlands planning day

On 24 June EN staff members across the East Midlands and West Midlands joined forces and took part in a planning day. It was a brilliant opportunity to collaborate with other NDO’s, learn and share best practice and a great space for people to share thinking, challenges, successes and to learn from each other. We all presented our biggest England Netball achievement of 2018/19 - I exported all 1351 participants that we engaged with across Derbyshire and Notts and created the below image, in an attempt to summarise my first year with EN! It was lovely celebrating everyone’s biggest achievements and definitely inspired us all to carry on making a difference and enriching more lives through netball. 

June key targets summary

Engaged 250 participants (78 new to netball)

£851.00 income surplus

2019/20 total to date: 554 participants (284 new to netball) and £2864.00 income surplus

[thisisnetball]

May 2019

Everyone wants a piece of Netball...

May was one of those months where I failed to have any sort of work-life balance, it was crazy busy - everyone wants a piece of Netball!

I’ve met so many new partners and have lots of exciting programmes in the pipeline including a new Active Colleges project in partnership with Chesterfield College, launching in September. 

Corporate league launch

On 2 May the Derby corporate netball league launched, five businesses took part in the opening night:

Flint Bishop LLP

East Midlands Trains

Bates Weston

Cooper Parry

Smith Cooper

On Saturday 4 May I was invited to the closing East Midlands county tournament, which saw U13 and U15 athletes from Derbyshire, Notts, Nhants, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire come together at SOAR Valley in Leicestershire. It was a great opportunity to catch up with the Performance TSG’s from Derbyshire and Notts and of course watch some brilliant netball. 

With a Walking Netball festival coming up next month, I squeezed in a couple more visits to Walking Netball groups - promoting the festival to Hosts and talking to participants/answering questions about the event. This is really important, particularly when a group hasn’t attended a festival before as they can find the idea quite overwhelming. Nothing a chat over coffee and cake can’t solve though! 

New Netball Youth Camp

After speaking to a local netball club, I decided to pilot a Netball Youth Camp (NYC) in a new area of Derbyshire in May half-term so I spent the following 2 weekends visiting junior training sessions and junior league competitions armed with NYC postcards increasing awareness of the new, local opportunity. Generally I found talking to and (trying) to inspire the girls way more effective than talking to parents. I also challenged some of our amazing young volunteers in Derbyshire to promote the opportunity to their schools/clubs. The NYC went really well and the girls were in awe of our Vitality Roses SPOTY Team of the Year 2018 trophy!

After a busy couple of weeks I needed to find some admin time. I made a new template to log all my EN programmes and to help me keep on top of M&E. So far it’s proving to be an effective organisational tool! 

I had 2 new WI Walking Netball sessions launch this month in Derbyshire - Duffield WI and Swadlincote WI. Loughborough University attended the launch of Swadlincote WI and a record breaking 50 ladies walked through the door to complete baseline physiological tests and then took part in their very first Walking Netball session. 

It was another working weekend, presenting awards at the closing North Derbyshire Junior League tournament - but this was another not-to-be-missed opportunity to catch up with volunteers from across the county whilst everyone was very rarely in one place! Who doesn’t enjoy a day watching over 200 girls playing the sport they love with massive smiles on their face. 

Just because this month wasn’t already a crazy one, it was time to launch Walking Netball in Beeston (Notts). Chilwell Memorial Institute have been a fantastic partner and really worked hard to promote the new opportunity throughout the community. The sun shined and everyone had a great afternoon.

“I would like to congratulate you on leading such an inspiring and joyous session. This was undoubtedly one of the best things we have done. It was great to see new folks come together and have a great time.”

Netball is always the winner.

May key targets summary

Engaged 169 participants (132 new to netball)

£816.00 income surplus

2019/20 total to date: 304 participants (206 new to netball) and £2013 income surplus

[thisisnetball]

April 2019

From Navy Blue Knickers to Nike...

I’ve had the pleasure of being part of EN for a whole 365 days. I’ll never get bored of using the line “I started my role the week we won CWG,” it’s been a great conversation starter in my first year and has helped me generate continued excitement and welcome lots of new people and partners into our netball family. 

Personally, I had a successful first year in post as NDO working across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. I managed to exceed key targets engaging a total of 1351 participants (652 new to netball) and generate over £4000 of income surplus. 

If I had to summarise my EN journey this year in 3 words it would have to be:

Exciting

Challenging

Inspiring

New year, new challenge

After what has been the most exciting 12 months watching netball fever sweep the nation, the countdown has truly begun as we host the Netball World Cup on home soil in Liverpool this July. 

April has been another busy month. I’m currently actively delivering a Walking Netball session for Ridgeway WI and mentoring a UKCC L1 netball coach at a women’s only netball session in Derby. I’ve managed to pop in and visit some fabulous Walking Netball Hosts, catch up with our brilliant Walking Netball participants (and been fed a lot of coffee/cake!).

I got to spend Easter with EN supporting the International Netball Festival in Disneyland Paris, it was a magical (albeit very tiring) week! Coaching over 400 players in one day is definitely a new achievement. It was great to catch up with some local secondary schools from Notts whilst in Paris and I even got them to promote our Notts Netball Youth Camp (NYC) which took place on 18 April. 

We had an amazing Notts NYC team, engaging with EN staff from across 3 regions on 18 April (J Elson - Yorkshire, G Rettey - W Midlands, R Gregg - E Midlands). We had 27 happy girls at the end of the day all leaving camp with a sense of achievement. I also popped over to Coventry to support the W Midlands NYC and the Derby NYC took place on 24 April. We all spent the day being filmed to help produce a new promotional NYC video which was pretty exciting!

I had planning meetings with Active4Today, a leisure provider working across Newark and Sherwood (Notts), Active South Derbyshire and Chilwell Lawn Tennis Club (Notts) - who have received a £50,000 grant from the SE Inspired Facilities Fund. It’s soon to be a great multi-sport facility and I’m excited to help support the introduction of netball as a new sport into the heart of the community!

The East Midlands hosted our Goalden Globe Awards on the 28 April, volunteers from across the region come together under one roof in Derby for a very special celebration to recognise the outstanding contributions they make to our sport.

April ended with 2 late nights, attending the Derbyshire Netball and Notts Netball County Management Board meetings, there was a big focus on ENs Netball Connected project and the introduction of the new ENgage admin system for 2019/20. 

April key targets summary

Engaged 135 participants (74 new to netball)

£1196.00 income surplus