INTERNATIONAL cricket umpire Claire Polosak, recently resigned from her high school teaching position, she loved, to become an Umpire Educator/Female Umpire Engagement officer for Cricket NSW.
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Polosak grew up in Goulburn where she developed a love of cricket and has gone on to become a high school teacher and well respected international cricket umpire.
Here commitment to the game has developed into a career and one she wants to share with other women and girls.
“ I have conducted a survey about the attitudes to female umpiring, and the biggest barrier to females considering umpiring, is a lack of awareness of umpiring as an opportunity to become, or remain involved in the game,” Ms Polosak said.
“Cricket Australia has a Community Officiating course that is aimed at people being involved in grassroots cricket.
“It prepares people for umpiring junior and school cricket.
“There are also other courses offered for umpiring senior (men’s and women’s) premier cricket, however, it is separate to this.”
The Community Officiating course comprises:
- An online module that takes approximately one hour to complete. This needs to be completed prior to attending the workshop.
- A three hour face-to-face workshop that will go into more detail following the online component, as well as strategies and techniques so the participants are confident about coping with the umpiring environment.
“I am hoping that a workshop can be run in the Goulburn area, one evening the week starting the December 12,” Ms Polosak said.
“The course is nationally recognised, as part of the Cricket Australia accreditation program.
“It is currently free for females to complete.”
Umpiring is everyone’s business and there are many benefits for participants coming into the umpiring environment.
- For teachers, there are the benefits of being more confident when umpiring school matches (or their own children’s games!) as well as Professional Development hours that can be counted in the teacher identified component.
- For current players, there is not only the benefit of learning more about the game they play, but also provides them with the knowledge that there are opportunities to be involved with cricket when they have retired from playing.
- For parents/caregivers, there are benefits of being able to be more involved in their children’s sport and contribute to the community, or simply understand more about their children’s chosen sport.
- For students/young people, there are also benefits, particularly learning new skills (many which are transferrable such as communication, decision making, and conflict resolution), meeting new people and also the opportunity of earning some extra cash on the weekends.
“In order to run a workshop in the Goulburn region, I will need a minimum of eight participants, who are committed to the course,” Ms Polosak said.
