National Women's Program update

A message from Jenny Becker Women's National Program Manager:

The news from the national women's program is full steam ahead on a number of fronts.

National Senior Women

The team of twelve for the Abu Dhabi Invitational Tournament has been announced and the group is preparing to depart from Melbourne on 19 May. It is a very exciting opportunity that has presented itself, playing the worlds best. We are sending along Teresa Henderson who some of you might know as the team manager with her primary role of providing match reports and news from the team during their tour.

Women's AVL kicks off this weekend and the athletes are all very keen to get underway. Also there is a lot of interest from the younger athletes who look to Women's AVL as a reason to stay in the game a lot longer. Women's AVL will remain the primary pathway for female athletes who want to represent their country at the senior level, as well as providing state senior athletes with the opportunity to compete against the best Australia has to offer.
The Senior women's team will be competing in Thailand in October and we are talking with New Zealand about re-invigorating the senior Trans Tasman series to be played here in Australia in November.

National Junior Women

I have now completed my "whirlwind, around Australia" coaching sessions.

Thankyou for all of you who were able to support me during these sessions with venue's, volleyballs, and the ability to pass information onto your respective athletes and coaches. The sessions were well received by both athletes and coaches (it was pleasing to have a number of school coaches along).

This week we have a visiting Chinese High School team in Melbourne (training with the Heidelberg women on Tuesday, playing against Uni Blues on Wednesday and then training with a barbarians team of national junior players out at Monbulk on Thursday afternoon). From Melbourne they head to Canberra to play a couple of matches and then on to Sydney.

I am hoping to invite more international junior teams out in the coming years and look forward to working with each one of you in ensuring the volleyball community benefits from these visits.

I am sure all the states are ramping up preparations for the upcoming national juniors in Melbourne. I am really excited about the talent that will be on show this year and I expect each age group to be hard fought.

Immediately following the national champs the national youth and national junior women's squads will be having a selection camp to decide the teams that will represent Australia in the September/October period (Asian Junior, Asian Youth and Trans Tasman).

National Beach Scene

The women are preparing for the Beijing Olympics through the World Tour event and Simon Naismith has been busy sending out tour reports.

The announcement of the teams to represent Australia at the upcoming World Beach Youth and Junior Women's Championships will be made soon and we are looking at adding to our trophy cabinet of one gold and one silver.

Coaching

As I have said earlier, I was really pleased with the amount of interest from coaches to the training sessions I held over the last couple of months.

I can also say that of the 12 coaches who attended the Bendigo Camp in December last year, all have the opportunity for an international tour this year. The women's program recognises the importance that school, club and state coaches make to the pathway we are trying to create. I am more than happy to give my time to activities you might be planning to conduct that will contribute to the ongoing development of coaches within your state.

Athletes

I have been very impressed with the quality of athletes around Australia in the 1992/1993 age group. And just as exciting is the next age group 1994/1995 who recently competed at the National Under 15 Champs in Albury.

The women's program is very keen to begin developing that next age group and provide the athletes and coaches with opportunities to be involved in the national program. More on this later though.

So I do hope this email finds you well and I look forward to catching up with each one of you over the coming months.

Jenny Becker Women's National Program Manager