Gender Engagement Committee: Looking Back and Forward
/Head of Quidditch Australia’s Gender Engagement Committee, Courtney Buckley, looks back on the committee’s work in 2019, and looks ahead to the initiative’s goals for 2020.
2019 saw the creation a new Quidditch Australia committee purposed with reflecting on how to make the sport and community more-inclusive of all genders. In this initial year, the committee decided to focus on the experiences of female players – acknowledging a lack of representation of females in numerous areas across the community and endeavouring to implement a variety of projects with the aim of developing abilities, confidence, and engagement of female members in the community.
This focus manifested through several projects, the main two being a review of the MVP system and trials of different models and the creation of a centralised resource guide for players and coaches.
Reflecting on QUAFL 2018, the committee recognised the lack of female player recognition (of 20 honourable mentions, only 1 female player was mentioned). Recognising the importance of both acknowledging the breadth of talent and abilities of players, and having diverse role models for players in the community to be encouraged by, the committee drafted a new MVP format. This format asked competing teams to identify one female and one non-female MVP of their opposing team, while the referee squad was asked to identify three female and three non-female MVPs of the game, assigning 3, 2, 1 points. The categories of ‘female’ and ‘non-female’ were used to ensure female athletes were reflected upon and recognised for their efforts and impact. This format was trialled at an NQL to garner feedback from the community- which was overwhelming positive – before being pitched to the State Shield board who also utilised the format, as did QUAFL 2019.
Early in the year a centralised resource guide was created, listing links under the headings Reffing, Snitching, Training/Coaching Drills and Skills, Community Discussion, Recruitment and Media, and pre-existing resource hubs of other quidditch bodies. This was created to make resources more accessible to all players and management teams so individual players and clubs can upskill, and also to provide a place for community sharing. Originally, the guide was accessible via the the Quidditch Oceania Region - "Quidceania" and searching ‘resource hub’. Now, many of these resources are also available in the resource hub on the QA website. If you have further resources to contribute, you can comment on the post, message Laura Smith, Samantha Chittenden, or Courtney Buckley, or email media@quidditchaustralia.org to have the resource added.
We’d also like to recognise the amazing work of state-bodies in running fantastic female-centred tournaments (Macarthur Fantasy in NSW, Level the Playing Field in QLD, and Breaking Barriers in VIC). These tournaments create greater opportunities for female players to step into roles they’re often less familiar with, from GMing and captaining, to head reffing, snitching, and seeking, and play-making. Furthermore, seeing ideas from these tournaments incorporated into regular state-based tournaments, such as the shadow refereeing and shadow snitching initiatives which provide support and feedback for new and developing HRs and snitches.
2020
This year, we hope to run more projects and incorporate more committee members to help us with the numerous projects. Kick starting the year, we’ve asked women in the community what they’d like to see from the committee, and we also have plans to advance projects created last year.
One such project from last year, which has also recently been requested by members of the community, is a video-based skills, drills, and strategy/practical manual that will focus on techniques for smaller-bodied players. It will include instructions from tackling techniques, throwing form, and stepping mechanics, to building communication, developing player confidence, and enhancing game awareness.
We also plan to foster greater community discussion throughout the year, utilising facebook group spaces to have post-and-comment conversations, as well as regularly posting member-written articles. Diversity of opinion (in gender, experience, state, and team) is incredibly important to us, so if you’d like to contribute an article to the discussion please feel free to send them through to Ajantha as QA Media Director (media@quidditchaustralia.org) to collate and post. And if you prefer more casual engagement, keep an eye out for the regular discussion posts and chuck in your two cents.
We’re also hoping to foster club skill-sharing, especially with the knowledge being created through World Cup and Dropbears preparations this year. With the community spread far-and-wide, one of the best times to run development-based workshops is tournament days – where everyone is together and available. Through short (30min-1hr) workshops, each focused on a specific skill or theme, held regularly at every tournament (state and national), and facilitated by top players in the country, the community can help support less-resourced clubs and players in their development and, in turn, the development and security of the sport in general.
In the hope of providing all these projects the committee needs more helping hands. We’re hoping to expand our formal committee to have two people from each state to liaise and support local project efforts. And for those with less spare time but a passion to be involved, we’d be thrilled for you to let us know you’re interest and to help out with individual projects (or their parts) – from running a tournament workshop, filming a demonstration of a particular skill/technique, to writing an article sharing your experience and ideas.
To get involved, please sign up as a volunteer here or message Laura Smith, Samantha Chittenden, or Courtney Buckley directly.