#31 Weight of the world on their shoulders

This week some of the NGB employees have been posting their thanks on social media for presents received from their employers. 

Not before time. 

I know, first hand, what a passionate, talented & loyal workforce we have working for us in England and to finally see some recognition of their dedication is heart warming and frankly, long over due. 

It’s a positive sign in the change of direction from the new leadership team and I am sure we will see more. 

As much as I am delighted employees are finally seeing some recognition for going above and beyond, it’s the netball volunteers, who are bearing the brunt of all things Covid-19. 

My club is returning to ‘friendly’ fixtures this weekend. The respective leagues we play in, all run by volunteers, have had to climb proverbial mountains to get us back on court. The correspondence, documents and guidance are out of this world - that’s before you consider the vast amount of reading and research that’s had to be done to complete them! 

The people on the end of these documents and emails are, of course, more volunteers, within club settings. 

These are the people who, firstly, have to read all this information, understand it and communicate it to their club membership. They are booking venues (or trying to - those that are open may well be pricing themselves out of usage, £199.50 we were quoted recently for a match!) writing risk assessments, setting out one-way systems and sourcing PPE equipment for the best price! 

It’s the time this all takes that would take your breathe away if you actually knew! To pay someone professionally to do all this would surely cost thousands of pounds? 

The responsibility to also get this right is too huge for an adjective to describe it properly! Get it wrong and you could be in trouble with the local / county / regional or even national governing body. 

Set that aside a moment, is it too strong to say, actually, it could be a matter of life or death? Because in a worst case scenario, no matter how unlikely we may think it is, that is what it comes down to, isn’t it? 

And here we are, yet again, leaning on our awesome army of netball volunteers to again come up with the goods! To make sure we still have opportunities to play despite a global pandemic and to make sure thousands of ‘ballers stay safe. 

That’s quite a responsibility, voluntarily. 

So, if you are reading this and are one of these fabulous, passionate people who have got our great game moving again. Thank you. It will never be enough and you deserve so much more. Never think you are not appreciated. You most certainly are. 

Here’s to all the netball volunteers. 

Here’s to being back on court again (weather dependant, this weekend, think!) and here’s to the future of netball - where, hopefully, we learn lessons during these difficult times and volunteers are at the heart of our gratitude going forward.