Netball Victoria were thrilled to welcome two new Elected Directors to their Board at their Annual General Meeting last month. Both Carol Cathcart and Kylie Spears are names synonymous with Victorian netball, with both individuals bringing and array of experience and skills from their industries
The election of Cathcart in particular is significant for the regional Victorian netball community. Cathcart is the first regionally-based member to be elected to the Board in eight years. Pam Ferrari – who is a current staff member at Netball Victoria and shares an office in Bendigo with Cathcart in her current role as Northern Region Manager – finished her term in 2012.
With Netball Victoria having released their new Regional Strategy in 2018 – as a part of their four-year Strategic Plan – which aims to increase participation in all aspects of netball – playing, elite, admin, leadership, coach and umpiring to try and better match the spread of our members, having regional Victoria represented on the Board to help achieve this is crucial.
A physical education teacher by trade, Cathcart was a natural to move into coaching once she finished playing netball. From community netball right up to the top of the elite pathway, it seems there are very few teams that Cathcart hasn’t coached. From the Australian Institute of Sport to the Melbourne Phoenix and then Vixens, as well as the Australian 21/U team, Cathcart has worked alongside the likes of Norma Plummer, Julie Hoornweg, and countless others synonymous with netball royalty.
“From a Victorian perspective I’ve coached state teams for both Netball Victoria and School Sport Victoria,” Cathcart elaborated. “I’ve also been involved in mentoring the 17/U and 19/U coaches this year, and I’m pretty passionate about Victorian netballers performing well. Whether it’s at elite level or grassroots…our coaches and our Associations have a really big role to play in developing everyone to be the best they can be, and I think the better job we do at that, the more successful we then are at the elite level and the more young girls that we can help achieve their dream, so it’s really about giving them that opportunity to enjoy. And I love it! I just love it.”
In 2014, Cathcart decided to seek work a bit closer to home, in her hometown of Bendigo.
“At first I got a job in a school, and then 12 months later I got a job with AFL Central Victoria,” Cathcart continued. “When I started off [with AFL Central Victoria] I was the manager of the Bendigo Football Netball League, so I oversaw the footy and netball competition for that league, which is the major league in the area. From that perspective I think I got a good understanding of how netball fitted into the footy-netball environment, you know I’d coached in that environment, I’d coached a footy netball league [team] before, but certainly when you become an administrator you get a different perspective of it.”
“A couple of years later…I became the Regional General Manager for AFL Central Victoria. We’ve got four senior men’s leagues, a junior men’s league, [and] a women’s league, but we also oversee and look at [programs like] Auskick, coaching, diversity…[and] we also have an umpiring body that we administer as well. There’s a lot of different areas that we’re involved in, and certainly with the council we’ve been involved a lot with their gender equity portfolios, around really just trying to have AFL and our footy netball in the area being involved a lot in the community. Whether it’s diversity, whether it’s multicultural, whether it’s gender equity, [there’s] a lot of the different areas that sport can make a difference in.”
When the opportunity rose to apply to join the Netball Victoria Board, Cathcart said her motivate to apply was fairly obvious.
“I’m pretty passionate about netball!” she laughed.
“It’s obviously been my whole life, whether it’s been as a player, and then a coach, [and] an administrator, and I just love netball. I actually started up a junior academy in our AFL Central Vic region for 12-to-14-year-olds, so I’m pretty passionate about trying to ensure that young people have an opportunity to participate and play and be part of a team.
“All of the values that you learn from being involved in netball and being a part of a team, whether it’s leadership, it’s teamwork, it’s resilience, it’s all of the really valuable life lessons that sport brings, and I think netball is one of those… I think [netball] is a sport that really does provide opportunities for females to be involved in a lot of leadership roles that they don’t always get an opportunity to be involved in or feel confident enough to put their hand up for.”
Cathcart also believes that having herself a regional voice represented on the Netball Victoria Board will assist in the practical delivery of Netball Victoria’s Regional Strategy.
“I think it’s about being able to provide – certainly from a Board perspective – an understanding of having lived it. It doesn’t mean it changes the decisions that are being made, it just means there are some other considerations which might make you do a little bit differently. It also might just mean that you do the same things, but you just deliver it differently. So, to me it’s really about an opportunity from a Regional Strategy perspective that we actually consider our broader community, and not just those that are right in front of our face.”
“Having the knowledge of growing up in the country, I know that country people have a lot to offer and often get missed out just because of the tyranny of distance. It’s really just making sure that they have a voice,” Cathcart continued, “but at the same time I think I’ve got a really good overview of what netball looks like internationally and across Australia at an elite level, but also how important it is to the smallest communities, so it really is about me giving back across all of those areas.”
“I think the Regional Strategy is about making sure that regional people get opportunities – whether it’s playing, coaching, or umpiring – and it’s not just opportunities that are available within their area, but that they get an opportunity to move through the pathway, or they get an opportunity to access professional development that their city counterparts get, [so that] they can be the best they can be in whatever part of the sport they choose,” Cathcart continued. “Really it’s about us being able to get out there and being able to help and provide that in an environment that they’re part of, rather than always expected those people to travel to the city where things are often held.”
“It’s an opportunity to…increase participation. We know certainly that young people give up sport quite early, and like I said it’s got a lot of benefits [being involved in a sport like netball]. I think if we can make sure that we’re providing a product that is attractive to our young people and get them engaged in netball and then really get them as lifelong participants in some way, shape or form, I think that’s really what the [Regional] Strategy is about. It’s about connecting with people in their own environment.”
Image credit: Bendigo Advertiser
