10-1-1 Conference Outcome

Saturday 1 September 2007 - East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham

Saturday 1 September 2007 saw England Netball's National 10-1-1 Conference in Nottingham. With over 100 delegates and an impressive key-note speaker attendance, the day provided an opportunity for England Netball members to hear the 10-1-1 Vision and have their say for the future of Our Great Game.

Welcome from the Chairman

Cheryl Danson, England Netball's Chairman opened the conference thanking everyone for attending and introducing the key note speakers - Jennie Price, Chief Executive of Sport England, Mark Gannon, Head of Marketing at sports coach UK and Liz Broomhead who would be discussing England Netball's work abroad.

Cheryl went on to outline some of England Netball's achievements over the past year and whilst it had been a challenging year with the change of  CEO, many positive achievements had been made, including the increase in affiliations, achievement of UKCC level 1 and 2 endorsement, Foundation and Preliminary level achievement of the Equality Standards for Sport, a very successful Test Series and of course historic win over New Zealand!

Key Note Speakers

Jennie Price presented to the conference on 'together for sport' a copy of which is available on the website.

Jennie outlined some key points including;

  • The importance of the delivery system and the 'people behind the people' - i.e. coaches, volunteers, umpires, parents
  • Clarity about Sport England's priority to increase participation in 16+ year olds although it was noted some support is still available to development work with 14-16 year old and performance athletes
  • The Sporting Landscape - clarity about who does what with what funding and when. Every aspect of the sporting landscape must be covered and delivered - funding may vary
  • Jennie herself could not remember a time in the last 12 years or so when funding has been tighter. At the moment we are in a tough funding environment. There will be a lot less money going forward. In some ways negative but overall not a disaster, what we need is good evidence based decision making
  • A New 4 year cycle for 2009 - 2013 - potential to grow participation and placing in active people critical - growth participation
  • The Active people survey is an important tool to help us measure participation and currently shows that 21% of the population are active in some way but Jennie did recognise that the survey tells us nothing about people doing no activity - much more research is needed

Mark Gannon then presented to the conference 'The changing landscape of coaching and the UK Coaching Framework'.

Mark outlined some key points including;

  • Netball's progress at levels 1-3 of the UKCC
  • Netball identified by scUK as a trailblazer sport - it means Netball is recognised as leading the way in some areas of coaching and coaching development work.
  • The UK Coaching Framework is a framework not a system. Built by the industry and led by scUK. Sets clear direction, policy and practice
  • Mark explained all 5 strategic action areas of the UK Coaching Framework
  • We are driving for the best possible coaches for all participants - why not - that is what we and they should expect
  • In summary there is a real opportunity ahead to really achieve both organisations visions
England Netball then responded to the challenges set down from Sport England and scUK and the conference heard from Paul Clark - Interim CEO, Karen Rothery - Commercial Director and Nigel Holl - Director of Netball. Paul Clark opened the presentation by thanking everyone for their attendance and that it was a welcome opportunity for him to address the Netball membership.

Paul explained how it was vital that we now concentrate on building the new business plan and how a clear vision needed to be set out for the future of Netball in England. On a series on slides, Paul set out a mission that was 'To make a difference through Netball' and using a series of slides that can be found on this webpage that is supported by 3 vision statements that represent 10-1-1

Netball 10 - We aspire to establish Netball as a top 10 participation sport in England
Netball 1 - We aspire to establish Netball as the first choice for women and girls
Netball 1 - We aspire to achieve and maintain Number 1 World ranking status

Paul went on to set out the strategic framework, planning horizons and next steps/timelines for the business plan.  Paul concluded by summarising his key messages - to apply business principles, invest in our workforce, retain and grow the membership and act as one team working towards one vision.

Karen Rothery then addressed the conference primarily focussing on one of the three main vision statements - Netball 1 - We aspire to establish Netball as the first choice for women and girls. Karen discussed the role of the media as a vital factor in growing female sport and how a serious inequality of coverage remains as it does with funding through sponsorship. Over the past couple of years, England Netball have been working on developing the 'brand of Netball' and Karen explained how this is of continual importance. Making Netball cool is important to our future growth and marketing potential and the need for strong aspirational role models, improving the image and profile of Netball as well as getting on the telly and stating on the telly are vital factors.

Karen went on to launch a new casual kit range with Kukri that would be available in high street shops in the Autumn and Netball viewing figures had far exceeded anticipated viewing figures during the last NSL season. In conclusion, Karen showed a short DVD of how NSL would look next year in partnership with Sky.

The third of the three presentations from the Corporate Management Team came from Nigel Holl, newly appointed Director of Netball. Nigel's team focuses on 2 areas of the visions;

Netball 10 - We aspire to establish Netball as a top 10 participation sport in England
Netball 1 - We aspire to achieve and maintain Number 1 World ranking status

Nigel explained the 'Active People' survey conducted by Sport England and how this will be used as a measure of participation levels in sport. Netball is currently ranked as 24th but if you remove all non-competitive sports (e.g. walking aerobics, yoga) then Netball immediately rises to 12th place. With the aspiration to be a top 10 sport, Netball has a little way to go and Nigel outlined some ideas of how this may be achieved. Nigel reinforced the importance of us all working together to achieve what is a challenging target but ultimately for the good of Netball.

The second part of Nigel's session was in relation to achieveing and maintaining the number 1 world ranked Netball country. Bronze to Gold is a tough challenge, England is currently ranked 4th in the world as of the last World Championship but the establishment of the new competition structure and the current competitive structures stand us in better stead. Unfortunately thought, the opposition do not stand still either! Australia and New Zealand have just launched the Trans Tasman Competition and we can't ignore the emerging countries either - Malawi!!

With new world ranking systems being proposed at the next congress meeting means any country could in theory achieve No 1 world ranking outside a world championship competition, and of course could loose the ranking too! An exciting time is ahead for the performance teams with the World Champs in November and then recruitment of the new National and U21 coach positions to be followed by the recruitment of a new Performance Manager the future is challenging but we hope bright!

In conclusion to the entire session, Nigel Holl concluded with the following;

  • 3 parts to the vision - all integrated and supporting each other
  • International success, feeds improved profile, leading to increased participation, making Netball the choice for girls and women - cyclical impact
  • This vision must drive all our thinking, planning, and delivery. It will meet our members needs, our participants needs, and our partners needs
  • Join us in making a difference through Netball
To conclude the morning, Liz Broomhead provided the delegates with summary of England Netballs' partnership with Netball Europe, IFNA and UK Sport in developing Netball in Southern Africa. A copy of Liz's presentation is also available on the website.