Looking back, I stumbled in to sport by mistake. There were no sports connections in my family as such, but I found tennis at eight years of age and could naturally play the sport well. I became hooked very quickly and through the support of my family achieved my childhood ambition of becoming a professional player. I fell in love with sport and what it offered, so quite quickly I knew it was always the career path for me in whatever format that took.
Reflecting on my time as an athlete, I now realise that sport has given me the skill set that I possess today. It’s given me a platform and a level of confidence which I don’t think I would have gained from doing anything else. It’s given me the ability to travel, enabled me to experience new cultures, meet new people and the opportunity to live abroad. Whether competing, pembinaan or coaching, whatever guise I was in at the time, sport provided me with a wealth of experience that I’m not sure exists in other sectors, or that you can find in other opportunities. Whether as an elite athlete, coach or now, administratively, sport is still offering me opportunities, and the one I value the most is being able to pass on the skills I’ve learnt through my experiences.
My arrival in sport, somewhat by fluke, is essentially the reason I’m still involved in it today and inspires me to do what I do now. I’m from the Welsh valleys and I didn’t have an affluent family background. Back then, there were accessibility issues when it came to sport in terms of finance, travel and opportunities to participate. My talent was found by chance, and I believe there are lots of talented children and young people out there across a range of sports that just don’t have opportunities to participate. I’ve always been driven by the fact that this needed to change and I believe it has positively changed; sports are more accessible and opportunities are more diverse. However, as with anything there is always more to do. Organisations are really trying to broaden the scope of sport, and its accessibility, and that for me is why I continue to be in the sports sector; to develop and grow people through sport, grow skills and confidence regardless of ability or age. If you get a champion from it then great, but for me personally that’s just an added bonus.
Originally, one of the main reasons I became involved in the administrative side of sport was to be able to lead change, to expand the reach of sport and open the doors of opportunity to as many people as possible. I have worked hard to get in to a position where I can positively influence and change the sporting landscape, even if only in a small way, I am playing my part. Sport has been so positive in my life and my family’s life, that it is important to give the same opportunities to as many as possible. In all honesty, it is the driving force behind my continued involvement.
As I think about my role in Welsh Netball at the present time, my team and I are concentrating on getting the offer right for the people out there that want to take part; it’s all about developing and improving what we offer. It’s partly why I took on the CEO role at Welsh Netball. I firmly believe there is so much opportunity to grow the sport and provide so many more products than has been done previously. This gives the sport a strong platform to really engage women and girls and keep them in the sport for life. Netball offers a range of benefits, from the social aspect through to fitness and its competitive element. Not only that, we’re fortunate as the Wales national side are doing incredibly on the world stage, coming away with 7th in the recent World Cup. This coupled with the Celtic Dragons playing weekly in the Superleague, gaining recent back-to-back wins and coverage on SKY; we’ve got a great platform to promote women in sport. Our elite players are fantastic role models; articulate, intelligent young women, successful in their own careers or studying at university, but they are also ambassadors for the sport of netball and women in sport in Wales and the UK. The more female role models we have in sport in Wales, the better for the sector and the more influence we have to engage with more and more people
The network of people in Welsh Netball from the staff through to the volunteers and players have worked tirelessly to deliver the sport throughout the years and in 2016, I pledge to use the tools I have through netball to inspire and recognise the networks of women we have in such a great sport.
By Sarah Jones, CEO Welsh Netball
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar