Our girls deserve a sporting chance!

Netball is overwhelmingly the most popular team sport played by girls and young women in Australia. We see this reflected in the numbers of girls playing netball with Mosman Netball Club and we're thrilled that we have about as many girls playing junior netball with us as there are boys playing  junior cricket and rugby locally. 

However, our girls are seriously short changed by the netball facilities available to them in Mosman. For more than 600 girls, there are 3 undersized, unlit, outdoor courts at the Drill Hall and there is limited access to the one indoor court in the Marie Bashir facility. As a winter sport, this means teams share small courts, train for half the time they should and need to be finished by 5pm, when the sun goes down.  This makes it challenging both for working families to get their daughters to training and to attract volunteers to coach them.

It is wonderful that the Federal and State Governments recognise the importance of girls playing, and staying, in sport and have prioritised this in their current policies. Encouraging more girls to to play sport is really important,  because it helps them to maintain their physical and mental health, supports their self esteem and a positive body image and encourages team work and leadership skills.  

Since, for most girls, netball is their chosen sport, if we are to keep them playing netball, they need facilities - courts with proper playing surfaces, lighting and a clubhouse with storage. Other major sporting clubs in Mosman, of similar size to netball, enjoy these facilities, but not netball. 

If we’re to level the playing field for girls in sport, we need the playing fields to begin with!

We, the undersigned, call on Mosman Council, our State representative Felicity Wilson MP, Stuart Ayres MP (Minister for Sport) and our Federal representative Tony Abbott MP to take urgent action to ensure that girls in Mosman can enjoy netball facilities that have proper surfaces, lighting and storage.