Highlights from IFNA Congress Meeting

Two days to go before the 5th World Youth Netball Championships and the International Federation of Netball Associations are hard at work on a beautifully hot, sunny day, meeting and making decisions that will impact the future of Netball - the fast, exciting sport that we all know and love.

With 2 delegates per member country represented, the group size was enormous and the discussions were varied and lively.

Molly Rhone, IFNA President, started the meeting with congratulations to Lucile Seaman, representing the Cayman Islands, who was recently elected to Parliament in her country!

Molly Rhone then went on to address the theme of the meeting - Looking at the Big Picture - to address the future growth of Netball worldwide and as an Olympic Sport. Currently Netball is a Recognized Olympic Sport and it is the long term goal to have Netball be a Programmed Sport. She praised the courage, will, committment and perseverence of all IFNA members in promoting Netball at a regional and national plus international level.

We haven't even started one Youth Championships and we're already looking at the next bid. Two countries presented their bids for the 6th World Youth Netball Championships in 2009 - they were Singapore and Cook Islands. I suppose we'll have to wait and see who actually gets the bid .. more on that front later!

IFNA have just signed a 3 year contract with a Marketing company so expect to see some changes in the way that we promote Netball ... for the better!!

Currently IFNA has 39 member countries .. but proposals are coming in all the time for new Netball Associations to join. Countries such as Argentina, Nepal, The Bahamas and Nigeria are on the proposal list. In fact Thailand Netball Association recently applied for membership to IFNA and this motion was passed at the congress meeting.

The International Umpiring Committee was set up in 2002, just after the last World Youth Championships. In 2005, at the Championships, we should start to see the benefit of all the training programs and accrediation that have been put in place to improve the quality of umpiring on a local, national and international level.

Well ... that's about it for now .. more updates tomorrow.

See ya,
Helen