It was about eighteen months ago that our Women’s Institute in Hertfordshire first heard of the England Netball/WI initiative to promote walking netball and a fellow member and I thought it seemed a good idea to go along once a week and join in….. little did we realise we were signing up to help form a new group!
However with the help and guidance of our two lovely NDOs who found a local venue for us and with seven WI members (out of a membership of nineteen!) interested in ‘giving it a go’, we eventually got started in September 2018.
We were lucky enough to have members from three other institutes in the area join us which swelled our numbers to twelve.
Whilst ideally we would like at least two more members to make two full teams we do have a lot of fun and we have learnt a lot of netball-related games which can be played with a small number of players.
In April this year an opportunity came up for some of us to go on a course to learn how to become WI Walking Netball Hosts.
This was essential because the twenty sessions given to us by England Netball were coming to an end and if we didn’t run the group ourselves then it would close and we were all enjoying ourselves too much to allow that to happen!
Through Walking Netball we have all made new friends, had extra exercise and, most importantly, a lot of fun – a perfect recipe for later life!
Celia Kennett, Handside WI
