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Geelong Football Umpires League\u2019s Emily Jose will also take part in the program, which will run throughout this year. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\nFIVE of Geelong\u2019s female football leaders will hone their skills over the next 12 months as part of the AFL\u2019s Lead Your Way program.<\/p>\n
Nearly 60 local club committee members from across the state were selected in the latest intake, including five women from AFL Barwon clubs.<\/p>\n
Carly Enticott (Lorne), Chantelle Dalton (Cobras), Ebony Storrar (St Albans), Abbey Watt (North Shore) and Emily Jose (Geelong Football Umpires League) will meet with their cohort for the first time in late March.<\/p>\n
Jose is one of two umpire representatives selected for the program.<\/p>\n
While there has been a boom in senior and junior female player numbers, she said umpire numbers are still lagging behind.<\/p>\n
With a decade of experience holding the whistle, Jose is hopeful the skills she takes from the program will help her build confidence in her role as a leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to think that my presence on the [GFUL] board shows that women do have a seat at the table and that I can be someone that I hope the girls in our group can look up to me and can rely on me to support them and have their best interests at heart and show that we can grow these numbers,\u201d Jose said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really keen to hear of other women\u2019s experience, I\u2019m sure there\u2019s lots of lessons to learn and support that can be offered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jose was first selected to be on a community club board as a teenager, and at 27 is often still one of the youngest people in the room.<\/p>\n
She is looking forward to furthering her skills in professional communication and management.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always been one of the youngest and the only female, and have found sometimes it can be challenging to understand the differences in communication styles,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like being part of this program and what I\u2019m hoping to get out of it is to understand when to back myself, when to pull back, how to phrase things in a way that is going to be well received by everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping to get some reassurance and support that I have great value to contribute and learn more about how I can harness that for the best outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
After taking up football alongside her brother as a child, Storrar has grown up as part of the St Albans Football Netball Club.<\/p>\n
Geelong Football Umpires League\u2019s Emily Jose will also take part in the program, which will run throughout this year. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n
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Working tirelessly to uplift women in sport in recent years, she is looking forward to participating in a program that will help her lead change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe structure of this program empowering me as an individual to lead the way to make change excites me,\u201d Storrar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not explicitly how are you going to fix one club, it\u2019s how we\u2019re all going to work together to pave the way for a future across the entire region.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a group selected from within the AFL Barwon region excites Storrar, knowing they will have similar understandings of how clubs and competitions operate within the area.<\/p>\n
She hopes all participants will graduate from the program with new skills to improve the outcome for all people involved in community football.<\/p>\n
Having targeted education for women stepping into committee positions can only end well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want there to be more women in leadership, and I want there to be more women in all the positions that there are, but I want those women a to be educated and equipped to do it well,\u201d Storrar said.<\/p>\n
The Lead Your Way program is in its third year with expectations to return again in 2027. The cohort will meet for the first time in late March before undertaking 12 months of education and networking events, including a full day conference mid-year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIVE of Geelong\u2019s female football leaders will hone their skills over the next 12 months as part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-557430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}