Registrations for the 2024 Kiama Social Netball Competition has surpassed founder Natalie Allan’s expectations with 135 kids already pre-registered.

The competition is in its third year running, and initially Allan started it as a way for junior netballers to continue developing and having fun with the sport into summer.

“This is our third year running and the reason I started it is that when kids play winter netball they’ve just gotten into their groove and started to understand the rules, and play, and then it’s over. Plus, there was no local competition available for summer for anyone under 16 and we had kids going to Shellharbour to play. So, I thought why we couldn’t do something locally?” Says Allan.

The competition has only grown since then and the 2024 competition promises to be the biggest yet as they’ve moved it to the outside Kiama netball courts and added a training option coached by Allan’s daughter, Molly Allan, who recently completed her development coach accreditation.

"This year we’ve gone outside because there was a lot of interest, and we were capped because of Kiama Leisure Centre’s availability. We’re currently up to 135 kids pre-registered and we’re almost full,” says Allan.

“Based on the feedback from the last few years, my daughter Molly Allan will be running group session training. Instead of playing in a team and playing a social game participants will play two 10-minute quarters of skills run by Molly who is a development level coach.”

But Allan identifies that the main reason the competition is so successful is because of its social aspect. The games have no scoring, no coaches, no uniforms and kids are encouraged to swap positions each quarter and this all creates a fun atmosphere for kids who may find the pressure of competitive netball too much.

“What people said was the best thing about the competition was the social aspect. It’s all about having fun and getting new people in and it works really well for kids who are neurodivergent or anxious because it just takes the pressure off,” says Allan.

Kiama netball is extremely successful for their size with the U13’s representative team winning at the NSW champions and the U12’s team getting runners up.

“I think we’ve always been a strong netball association, but certainly the idea of the social competition is to encourage kids to come to the game. Kids have so many options these days like soccer and league tag and AFL. We wanted to bring a bit more fun to netball and encourage new players to come in,” says Allan.

The Kiama Netball Social Competition has its first round on October 14 and there are still some spots available. You can register via the Kiama Netball Social Competition Facebook page or through contacting Allan herself (her contact details are available on the Facebook page). 

The Competition is also looking for a sponsor, so if you’re a local business looking to support a community organisation, get in contact with Allan as well.