Wimmera Regional Sports Assembly and the Centre for Participation have received a grant through the state government’s Change Our Game initiative to run a governance program.

Change Our Game encourages the sporting sector to challenge gender stereotypes and help more women and girls to reach their full potential.

The Women In Sport Good Governance Program will provide training to help women feel more confident to step into leadership roles in the sporting field.

Sports assembly project co-ordinator Rebecca McIntyre said the idea for the training came after a female administrators network meeting, where Centre for Participation chief executive Julie Pettett was the guest speaker.

“We developed a female administrators network earlier in the year in regards to the Change Our Game campaign,” she said.

“Julie came along to the first meeting we had, and the feedback from the group was that it was fantastic to have someone with her knowledge, and they wanted a lot more of that.

“We also had a meeting recently about the Fair Play Code. Fourteen clubs were there, and they all said their biggest barrier to retaining and recruiting volunteers over the next three to five years was around governance and compliance issues.

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could offer some type of program to empower and strengthen the knowledge of our female administrators in the area?’”

Mrs McIntyre said the program would be the first of its kind in the Wimmera.

“We’re excited to bring this to our community,” she said.

“We are being proactive to hopefully create sustainability for our clubs.”

Ms Pettett said the program would support women to understand the positive impact they could have on sporting culture.

“It’s not about women going in feeling they have to go head-to-head with somebody to be heard, but rather to show that as women, we bring a really important view and style of governance, and we actually strengthen the culture of a club for the future,” she said.

“We know that community-owned and run clubs are the fabric that holds our communities together. They deal with everything from isolation to mental health and community capacity-building.

“Understanding of that is now coming into good governance. 

“It’s about getting people to see that good governance isn’t about ticking the boxes to say we did what the auditor required, but thinking about the next three to five years and thinking about what we need to do in our clubs to achieve our vision.

“You can teach people the principles and tools, but what’s often left out is what the culture of good governance looks like, as that will take a club through good times and bad.

“This sort of initiative is absolutely forward-thinking for the Wimmera.”

The program will be delivered in four sessions over two days in Horsham, but will also offer an online component for people who cannot attend in person.

Mrs McIntyre said people could visit wrsa.org.au/women-in-sport-good-governance-program-expression-of-interest/ to register for the program.

She said spaces were limited.