THE Wimmera Regional Sports Assembly has been nominated for a Victoria Sport Award for its role in empowering women to get involved in sport.
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The assembly teamed up with the Centre for Participation this year to start the Women in Sport Good Governance Program. The program is designed to equip women the necessary skills to take on governance positions within sporting clubs and businesses.
The program is one of four to have been nominated under the Sport Development Initiative Award category.
Wimmera Regional Sports Assembly’s project co-ordinator Rebecca McIntyre said the program had been rewarding.
“We started our female administration network and the feedback we had was women didn’t have the suitable knowledge of governance and compliance to really impact on boards,” she said.
“We are really excited to be nominated for the award and it puts a spotlight on what we are trying to achieve, which is to encourage women not only to play sport, but really to get involved at higher levels.”
Horsham’s Penelope Manserra was one of the women who completed the course.
She said she took away plenty of positives from the course.
“For the women who completed the course, it will give us the confidence to know what we are talking about - information is power and it gives us that confidence to put our hands up for these kind of roles,” she said.
“There were some really great examples and learnings from the course. It was very practical and we have things we can take back to our local sporting clubs.”
The content of the course was largely driven by the Centre for Participation.
McIntyre said the centre’s chief executive Julie Pettett was instrumental in getting the program off the ground.
“Julie is really passionate in this area and the program was really dependent on her knowledge,” she said.
“We also earned a grant from the state government and that really allowed us to roll it out without barriers for the women. We will be holding two-day courses in Stawell and Horsham in January too.”
The awards night is on February 20 in Melbourne.