I have been lucky enough to be a recipient of nominations for awards and honoured to even win a few of them! I picked up ‘Supporter of the Year’ a long time ago at The News ( local newspaper) Sports Awards - allegedly beating John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood by one vote! (Google him, I promise you will not be disappointed!)
In 2017 the Back to Netball / Walking Netball Coaching Team in South East Hampshire won the ‘Making a Difference’ Award at the Energise Me Awards - it was a very special evening and a memory I will treasure forever.
On both occasions it was a very humbling experience. But, and I make no apologies for saying this: I deserved to win them. That’s not very humble but in this feminist age of pushing ourselves forward and not apologising for breaking glass ceilings: it’s true!
Our volunteers, of which I am proud to say I am one, do not get the credit they deserve from the ‘powers that be’ and it’s something I write and talk about a lot to try and highlight the fact! Without our volunteers there would be no netball. Fact.
Awards are a great way to acknowledge and thank our volunteers - let’s face it running a league, umpiring, table officiating, being a Team Manager and the other umpteen voluntary roles that happen up and down the country on a regular basis, is often a thankless task! You get more complaints and issues than you do praise!
I saw some promotion for the Goalden Globes on social media this morning, not for my geographical area but I believe the idea is that there is a county round: winners go through to regional level and then the regional winners go through to the National Awards. It’s a great idea, in theory.
Practically, for me, it doesn’t really work and hasn’t done for a long time! That’s not to take away from the award winners though - every single one of them, have contributed to the success of netball and are worthy recipients of the accolades.
Some of the issues I have with this particular netball- specific system is that a lot of netball volunteers can’t even be nominated! Up until 2019 (and let’s hope it’s changed for 2020!) most of the individual awards had criteria including ‘nominee must be affiliated to England Netball’. My disappointment that I couldn’t nominate any, very worthy, walking netball volunteers often makes way for anger that we still haven’t addressed it after at least three years of me ‘banging on about it’!
I did raise it with a ‘netball bigwig’ once and the response was ‘get them affiliated then’. It’s a story for another time with a lot of sighs of exasperation!
Also, and this is important, not every county subscribe to the bigger picture of the awards! My county association, for example, didn’t organise any volunteer awards last year and the year before that it was the ‘netball volunteers awards’ rather than Goalden Globes - very different categories but again very worthy winners!
I think the Goalden Globes are another example (and there are a few now!) of where netball’s infrastructure and organisation has not kept pace with the development and success of the game. Perhaps netball is a victim of its own success, in this sense!
So, how about the non netball-specific awards? I LOVE seeing so many netball volunteers nominated and winning various awards up and down the country, through social media. There are the local area sports awards of course, which are normally council led or local sports partnership organised. You are reliant on budgets and also the ethos of these organisations though - sadly, but understandably, the Energise Me Awards finished in 2017. The County Sports Partnership became a charitable trust and the awards no longer met their aims and objectives. For me it’s a crying shame but I will always be very grateful and honoured that I was one of the final award recipients!
Some local newspapers also organise sports awards. My own experience of these were awesome. I saw our local sports awards grow from 50ish seat community theatres to the Guildhall decked out in all its glory! Sadly, these stopped a few years ago now and I suspect, as much as the original thoughts were full of good intentions, the award weren’t as financially beneficial for the newspaper as they once were!
My quest for nominating worthy netball volunteers continues, as in my area, at least, there doesn’t seem to be that many opportunities anymore. I’ve looked into ‘community awards’ that are not netball or even sports-specific. The trouble you have there of course is that the bigger the pool the more competition you have!
The forms you need to fill in are also immense - ironically not a lot of consideration for the nominators, who I assume will be 90% volunteers!
In conclusion I still believe that, in theory, awards are still a great way of acknowledging our netball volunteers. As well as the award winners it’s a great way of celebrating netball and sharing stories and successes with like minded people.
We need a find a format, a fairness and a system that works for the ever changing netball landscape though! I don’t think it’s the Goalden Globes - but, like our great game, it can evolve and I look forward to the day when I see one of my Walking Netball volunteers stride on to stage to pick up their award. They are worthy too.
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