THE Gippsland Cricket League will look at introducing a women’s cricket representative, following a forum held on Sunday.
GCL president and forum organiser George Munro said the aim of the day was to “open pandora’s box” on what associations wanted from the league, and getting a women’s representative was a priority.
“We think a women’s representative is really important, because we want the sport to be owned by the people who play it,” he said.
At the meeting, Traralgon’s Kylie Fairbrother asked to be considered for the position, which Munro said the league was likely to support.
“We’ll put her application to the board, and I can’t really see why it wouldn’t go through,” he said.
Overall, Munro said the day was “positive” and was “driven by the attendees”.
“We had representatives from Cricket Australia, Cricket Victoria and the Victorian Country Cricket League (in attendance),” Munro said.
“We were very pleased with the numbers, and the discussions were done in a way that were constructive – there was no finger pointing or anything.”
The meeting, attended by 34 people, was convened by John Harris from Cricket Victoria, who organised people into groups according to the issues affecting their association.
The issues discussed included the operation of the Access All Abilities program, as well as junior cricket and the timing of matches.
The associations will now go back to their respective committees to discuss the issues internally.
The forum will reconvene at the GCL’s annual meeting on 18 July.
Munro said the forum was “long and intense” and praised everyone involved for their patience.
“When you’ve got everyone in a room who are normally the heads of their association, to sit back and listen from 10am until 3pm in such a full-on environment, I really take my hat off to them,” he said.
“We’re very grateful for their time and ideas, and hopefully they got a lot out of it too.”
