PATRICIA BALCOMBE EN GOALDEN GLOBE NATIONAL WINNER – GRASSROOTS COACH 2011/12

Patricia has been the coach of the Surrey Heath netball teams that compete in the Surrey Youth Games since 2004. Patricia recognises the value of volunteering her time to support this as it aids the development of quality netball provision and increases opportunities for participation. In 2010 alone nearly 100 young people received additional organised and structured netball coaching sessions through the Surrey Youth Games. This was fed back to me by a parent after the sessions:

“I just wanted to say how impressed I was with the netball sessions that my daughter has attended over the last 6 weeks. She wasn’t chosen for the team but thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and no doubt benefitted from the extra netball coaching, which she may not benefit from at school.” Jan Hanley (Parent of Eleanor Hanley)

Subsequently Patricia’s club Surrey Heath Stingers has grown significantly in the past 12 months with junior memberships swelling to 90. The Stingers not only now have teams representing the club at every age group in the junior section now, but they have started an adult section so the club has a progressional pathway available post 16 so that the players can continue to enjoy playing netball in the borough.

Patricia’s influence has also helped the club develop in other areas with the older girls being encouraged to become umpires and coaches to ensure the club is self-sustainable long term. In 2010 the club developed 4 x U’18 Umpires, 1 x U’18 Level 1 Coach and 3 x U’18 Young Leaders. These young women volunteer their time to support the younger age groups at the club, developing their own skills through Patricia’s mentoring.

Although Patricia’s main focus is providing girls with the opportunity to participate regardless of ability it should be noted that as a result of Patricia’s coaching many individuals and teams enjoyed success in 2010. 4 teams either finished as winners or runners-up of their league gaining promotion and 2 players progressed to county academies with a further 2 currently being on trial.

Patricia is now working closely with England Netball to achieve Clubmark accreditation in recognition of the excellent policies and procedures the club put in place to offer a safe, enjoyable and developmental environment for all of its members.

On top of her club commitments Patricia also does all the fixtures for the Nonsuch Junior league in Surrey. The league has now been in existence for 3 years with Patricia as one of its founding members. The league has 11 participating clubs with over 50 teams and a high-5 section. The league provides junior competition opportunities to over 200 girls each meeting and Patricia creates, organises and circulates both the fixtures and umpire schedules for all these matches. This is a huge job that she does on a voluntary basis on top of her club commitments to support the development of junior netball in Surrey.

All of this could only be achieved through hard work, dedication and sacrifice of 20 hours every week to Stingers netball.