Hi All,

It's that time of year again when everyone starts to think about coaches,
players and umpires! This goes the same for a brand new club, which is
stating up in Darwin.

I'd love any pointers people might have for getting off the ground and
putting the word out there about what we have to offer. We're advertising
on the local Radio, We've organised a Quiz night and had a lingerie /
Tupperware fundraiser. We're selling chocolates too, but now we're out of
ideas and still up for a bit (as everyone no doubt is!) in fees and
registration.

I'd be thrilled to hear anything anyone has to offer or shed any light on
experiences of starting a club from scratch, including the unforeseen things
that I probably haven't considered. I'm a level one netball coach and have
been around netball playing and organising things for many years. This is
the biggest and boldest venture yet and it's a little daunting.

I've listed below what we're looking for at the moment and like I said,
anyone with the time to respond, would be great. My contact details are
below for anyone in and around Darwin who'd like to contact me about helping
out or playing in a team. The seniors don't train (yet and likely not to)
and the juniors will train at Palmerston. Games are at Parap on Thursday's
for seniors and Wednesday's for juniors.

We'd love a coach for a team of 15 & under girls. I would normally take on
this role but time off permits me from taking it on this year. At this
stage a reluctant Mum will take it on for the sake of her kids playing and
she's done it for a few years now but will help out to the end for any new
coach who may come along.

Umpires are needed for B Grade and C Grade and are paid $10 per game and
given free entry to the courts on game nights.

We're looking for 1 more player for B grade and another for C Grade. Very
social and fun teams who just like to be able to have a run each week.

We're very social and like to promote netball as the fun and fair game we
all grew up with. We're hoping to take the emphasis off winning and having
to perform at a certain level every game and focus on development of those
kids where they need it most.

Having said that, we still take to the court seriously and overall those
involved have all had some part in premiership teams and strive to do our
best no matter what.

We've starting our own club as an affiliation with our partners and their
Rugby club to spend more time as families and in a hope to broaden our reach
for promoting active participation amongst kids and adults. It's been great
to see how many Rugby mums and wives have been waiting for something like
this and also netballers husbands and kids taking up Rugby in return. We
take part in social activities with the Rugby players and they'll be our
daggy cheersquad as we will be theirs in 2005!


Cheers,
Kate Chandler
08 8901 0230 - b/h
0407 035 407 - mob
kate.chandler@...