Girls Leadership Forum a valuable experience for students

The fourth year of the Girls Leadership Forum hosted at Cricket Victoria’s state-of-the-art facility, the Citipower Centre, provided over 120 year 7 & 8 girls the opportunity to strengthen their leadership skills alongside their peers, with a focus on building confidence, resilience as well as exploring their leadership style.

The keynote speaker for the day, Bianca Chatfield, former Australian netballer and The Block contestant said that the day was about learning life skills.

“Even though we’re learning what happens within sport, it translates, it’s about coping skills when things don’t go your way…choosing the positive way of life rather than the negative is a pretty powerful thing no matter what you’re doing”

The forum included a range of activities with two discussion panels that allowed the students the chance to ask questions of the panel about their leadership skills and experiences.

The star-studded panels included:

•  Melbourne Renegades WBBL captain, Amy Satterthwaite
•    Former winter Olympian and leading expert on women’s health and fitness, Steph Prem
•    North Melbourne AFLW captain and former Melbourne Stars cricketer, Emma Kearney
•  Melbourne Star’s newest WBBL recruit, Holly Ferling
•  Coaching Talent Development at Cricket Victoria, Kathryn Fitzpatrick
•  Victorian Men’s Cricketer Xavier Crone

There were both physical and mental challenges for the students throughout the day. Programs about nurturing and guiding their leadership provided encouragement and educated them about the importance of developing their leadership skills.

The day also allowed the girls to understand the importance of fitness in maintaining strength in leadership, as they had the opportunity to participate in a Pilates session hosted by Studio PP, as well as Cricket Victoria’s female specific modified cricket program, Social Sixes.

Studio PP founder, head trainer and former winter Olympian Steph Prem said that she was excited to be participating in her third Girls Leadership Forum.

“I’m thrilled to be involved in initiatives like this that are empowering women not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually and encouraging and educating them how to be better leaders not just in sport, but in life.”

The Girls Leadership Forum is an extension of the online program, developed by Mental Edge Consulting – an organisation that specialises in team and organisational culture, wellbeing, performance enhancement, professional development services and support systems for high performance sporting organisations.

For more information about our online and school programs go to www.cricketvictoria.com.au/schools and register today.