Frome
Netball Club
FOLLOW US ONLINE TWITTER.COM/SPORT_IP
Frome
Netball CLUB
Article provided by Club Secretary Andrea McCall
J
une Barnes MBE formed Frome
Netball Club in 1950 with the
help of the area youth organiser
Mr Len Mills MBE.
They started with one ball and one
set of bands (now known as bibs)
and they trained at Oakfield
School in Frome, then
moved to the Frome
and District Youth
Centre
now
known as the
YMCA
which
has been our
home ever since.
We progressed
through
the
years
winning
all divisions in
Somerset
and
having
a
very
successful junior team
called Aces.
In the present day, June
Barnes is still involved with the
club as the Honorary Chairman. We now
have a thriving senior and junior club. We
have three senior teams; Stars, Diamonds
and Hearts that play in the Wiltshire
Moonraker League at Devizes. All the
teams are doing well in their divisions;
especially our 1st team Stars who have
gained promotion the last two seasons
and so far this season are undefeated in
Division 1.
I have been involved in Frome Netball
Club since 2011, joining as a casual
member. The warm friendly welcome
from everyone encouraged me to stay and
join a team and play competitively. As I
became more confident I started taking on
more roles within the club starting as key
holder, then I took on the responsibility
of kit co-ordinator and then when our
club secretary resigned I decided to take
on the challenge of this busy role, which
has grown immensely as the club has
expanded rapidly over the past couple of
years.
46 Issue 12
Although my position is very
rewarding, the high volume of work
to ensure the success of our club can be
extremely challenging at times especially
since we formed our brand new junior
section and ensuring we were
compliant with England
Netball has been very time
consuming.
Atmosphere
T
h
e
atmosphere
is
amazing at Frome
Netball Club; we
are
renowned
for being such a
friendly club to
join. We welcome
people of all abilities
to join and our caring
approach of everyone
ma tters from our coaches
Jane Boyland and Dawn Heal who
have exceptional skills of being able to
train people of all abilities, which has
made a positive impact on
expanding our club into
what it is today.
2015
2015
has
been
an
amazing year
for the club.
In
January
we
launched
a brand new
junior
section
which has gone
from strength to
strength and is now
so successful we have
had to close membership
temporarily for the 12-14year
olds due to a massive influx of members.
2015 has also seen our 1st team Stars
gain promotion into Division 1 and our
development squad Hearts coming 3rd in
Division 4. We also run our own Summer
league which local clubs take part in and
Stars made us proud by winning this
league which no Frome team has done for
years.
We also secured a sponsor for our
senior club in Dennis Maps Ltd. The club
has not had any sponsors for several years
so this will enable us to use this money to
develop our club further.
2016
2016 is going to be an important year
on the development of our club as we are
struggling with the facilities that Frome as
a town offers. We only have one netball
court to train on which is not a complete
full size court. This is having a major
impact on the development of our club.
So the committee is working hard with
the new plans that the YMCA have for remodernising the Youth centre and myself
and Janie Bullus (Vice Chair) have been
attending the Frome Town Council’s
Sports Panel meetings to try
and find a solution to the
lack of facilities in the
area. So by the end
of 2016 the club
would like to
have two netball
courts to ensure
the continued
growth of the
club.
Additionally,
we aim to achieve
our Bronze Club
Action
Planning
Scheme (CAPs). This
ensures you deliver a
quality netball development
programme and operate in line with best
practice according to England Netball.