At Focus we pride ourselves on being a friendly, nurturing club who hope to encourage a lifelong love of netball. Right from joining the club in Year 5, we encourage friendships to form with the aim to progress a squad through to senior level.
When juniors are in School Years 7-11, we offer them the chance to play in the Nonsuch Junior League. Once junior member reaches Year 10 they are invited to join the senior section of the club and may have the opportunity to play on Saturdays in the senior fixtures if they and the club feel they are ready to do so. Year 10 and 11's will continue to play in the Nonsuch Juior League alongside training with the senior squads.
All Year 10 and 11's are offered the opportunity to assist with coaching the juniors. Many of the girls have used this as part of their volunteering element for their Duke of Edinburgh Award. The netball also forms part of the physical element too! This all helps to make the transition from the juniors to the seniors as seamless as possible. The girls get used to mixing with a wide range of age groups right from the start.
Our subs aim to cover the hire of the courts, affiliation to England Netball (for insurance purposes), and to pay for equipment and coaching. We aim to have a high ratio of qualified coaches at our junior sessions usually about 4 or 5, not only to provide a high quality session but also to mentor those girls who are volunteering.
The Focus committee aims to keep subs as low as possible and they have remained the same amount for several years now. Currently our subs are £125 (Juniors) £160 (Seniors) and cover the whole year (September – July). We believe that compared to many other organisations and clubs this is really good value. We are not a commercial company so any profits made are ploughed back into the club; by buying equipment and by regularly paying for our members to complete coaching, umpiring and first aid courses. We also purchase the junior kit which is lent to members for them to play in instead of asking them to buy their own.
Everyone on our committee volunteers their time, so in order to try to keep things manageable, (especially for our treasurer) we request that if possible everyone pays at the beginning of the season. However, we are an approachable and inclusive netball club. Therefore, when parents or members have emailed us to ask if they are able to pay in instalments, we have done our best to accommodate these requests. An example of this may be when more than one family member attends training.
If you have any questions for individual committee members or the committee as a whole please contact us via the focus email address focusnetballclub@gmail.com details about the committee are below.
Focus Committee
Chair: Carol Doherty - oversees the running and management of the club
Secretary/Head Coach: Sharon McCabe - deals with all affliations and club coaching
Treasurer: Vicky Buckley - manages the clubs finances
Fixtures Secretary: Anna Duffy - organises all senior fixtures
Umpire Secretary: Darshika Shingadia - organises all umpires for fixtures
Training Coordinator: Andrea Garner - coordinates logistics for training
Junior Secretary: Sarah O'Brien - organises junior fixtures
Selector: Rachel Austin - main selector for senior teams
Covid Officer: Hannah Stowe