Saturday 27th May saw the MWFA run their first female only coaching course at Cromer Park. The ALDI MiniRoos coaching certificate was well received by its 10 female participants who all took away valuable resources and coaching ideas from course instructor Sharon Egger for working with ALDI MiniRoos aged players.
Research shows that some females may be intimidated from enrolling onto a coaching course as often they may be the only female in a male dominant environment. Louise Walker who is the Vice President for womens football who attended the course reiterated the fact that some females may need a female only environment for courses “Just as it is for playing football, some girls and women are happy in a mixed environment but others are more comfortable participating in a female-only course”.
The MWFA are committed to increasing the amount of female coaches across the Northern Beaches and this will be the first of many female centered opportunities for our members. Louise Walker once again emphasized the importance of females in coaching and implored them to get into the coaching. “We have lots of great female coaches in our association and it would be fabulous to see more. Courses like this and the future initiatives we have planned will help grow the numbers of females willing and able to take on the rewarding role of coaching. Even if you’re not sure about whether or not you want to coach, I recommend doing this course as a way to understand the philosophy behind and approach to coaching that the association and hopefully clubs recommend”.
Community Coach Development Manager Christopher Adams again insisted that this is just the first step for the association in their plan to grow female coaches. “This course for us is just the start of the process of trying to increase our female coaches, from recent stats only 12% of our registered coaches across the MWFA are female, I would like to see over the next 2 years this figure rise to 20% as female only courses are an important step in the right direction for this. We plan to run further female courses as well as other female driven programs so keep an eye out for these in coming weeks”.
The MWFA would also like to thank the Manly United SAP girls for attending the course to be involved in the practices and their parents for kindly bringing them down to Cromer Park for the morning.