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11th
March 2010
Netball
on the rise in Grande Riviere Gros Islet
It
is amazing how time passes on, as one would
never imagine it’s already two years in
the Grande Riviere community since a competition
was held to select an appropriate name, which
turned out to be the St. Lucian Eagles Netball
Club. The name had to reflect the aims and objectives
of the organization, its uniqueness, and the
reasons why it was formed.
Vice-president of the club Marie Samson said,
that the reasons re the submissions, as to why
that name was deemed to be most appropriate
was to ensure that there were no issues of misrepresenting
the facts, and based on a number of essays that
were submitted the name St. Lucian Eagles was
chosen.
“The club was formed to combat deviant
behaviour amongst the young ladies in the community,”
Marie Samson said while watching the young ladies
practise under the watchful eye of Coach Sharon
Panda. The members began their schooling at
the Grande Riviere Primary School, and have
continued playing at the secondary schools they
attend.
Most of them attend secondary schools, with
two at primary schools, but there were worrying
signs which prompted the club’s formation.
However, the downside to this is that the community
loses them to the Castries-based clubs, with
very few benefits accuring returning to the
community.
There were concerns expressed by the young ladies
over the pressures they were experiencing to
travel to training with the Castries-based clubs
they were part of, and then getting transportation
back home. As a result, the young ladies began
to look at the possibility of forming their
own community-based club, and in December 2008,
the new entity was formed.
The young ladies in the Grande Riviere community
are allowed to apply for membership, and in
May 2009, the St. Lucian Eagles Netball Club
was officially launched. The membership numbers
about twenty-five between the ages of 12 –
24, and is all female except for the president
Gordon Leonce who is male; and he is also the
vice-president of the Saint Lucia National Netball
Association.
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St. Lucian Eagles
Netball Club participated in the 2009 Helen
of the West Netball Festival, and although
they were not a threat to the more experienced
clubs, the vice-president says the decision
taken “Was to allow the girls to get
the experience needed in playing against various
clubs.” The club also organized and
hosted a netball-o-rama at the Vigie Multi-purpose
Sports Complex last year, which has contributed
immensely to the development of the players.
Vice-president Samson is very proud of the
improvement in discipline, “but would
like to see the girls work towards improving
their tactics on the court, and knowledge
of netball.”
The club’s administrators in seeking
to bring about greater harmony between the
club and members of the community, are faced
with difficulties in getting parents to participate
in the organization’s activities. “We
have had promises made by parents to come
but they never turn up at the activities,”
Ms Samson added. “We want them to be
part of what we are doing for one of the aims
is to give the community something it can
be really proud of.”
Another worrying factor is that of sponsorship,
and although Ms Samson said that Digicel,
LIME, and Courts have been quite gracious
in assisting them, the success of the programme
is not just developing netball amongst the
community’s females, but other programmes
aimed at other sections of the community,
or which private sector assistance is crucial.
That assistance is not seen to be coming from
just the business sector, but the community,
and plans are being formulated towards utilizing
the club’s membership as a marketing
tool. Training takes place three days weekly
on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at the
grounds of the Grande Riviere Primary School,
and already the club has tasted some success.
Kema Casimir, Gaenya Solomon, and Chattene
Justin were selected to the St. Lucia national
Under-16 netball squad for training, and Michele-Ann
Philbert, Lakesia Felix, and Dania Meriuse
were selected to the national Under-21 netball
squad for training.
Discuss
Story
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