In 2007 I decided cold and wet Sunday mornings umpiring or playing in the L&DDNL weren’t for me anymore and registered to play in the BDNL exchanging them for cold, wet and dark evenings instead.

I qualified as a beginner umpire in 2010 and worked hard to gain enough experience to take my C award. Chris West and Gloria Keech did not share my opinion that it was total misrepresentation of the movement needed to umpire a match when I had to reach level 5 on the beep test….thank you EN for doing away with that…. after I qualified.

Chris West, who I will always be grateful to, continued with my mentoring, enabling me to be signed off as an IO tester, which lead to me finding a love for mentoring.

Through my experience, I was then signed off as an IO to C mentor and tester and gain a great deal of satisfaction developing umpires, particularly when I get to drag them around the court to show them how I need them to move!

Being active, still playing…how?, umpiring, mentoring and testing it made sense to join the BDNL committee in 2021 to see where I could contribute to the BDNL further.

In 2025 I put myself forward to manage complaints as I felt this was something I could improve.

This has kept me very busy…What’s the saying; be careful what you wish for? I certainly didn’t expect to be worked so hard, I certainly didn’t wish for it! However, it does show it was needed and I’m very proud of what I have achieved with the support of the disciplinary sub committee.

My final commitment, which I’m privileged to support is the Heather Crouch Award for inspiring and developing the next gen of netball leaders.

Following the success of my first two umpires, I’m excited to see who comes on a journey with me in 2026/27.

Ultimately, I wanted to give back to those who invested in me since I was 15, and i think I’ve paid my dues now.

The problem is I love it…so unfortunately (for some), I’m likely to be around for a while yet :-)