Head of Sport Development and High Performance - Edition 18 - 2019

Hello and Farewell

Welcome to the final eNews for 2019, which is also the final eNews from me. As many of the community will be aware, at the end of 2019 I will be moving on and relocating to Europe with my family. I wanted to thank the Westminster community for welcoming me into the family and for the kindness of my fellow staff. It has been a pleasure to work with you all and I look forward to hearing about the exciting future which lies ahead for the school.

We have been watching the upgrade take shape, and for those who have been paying attention you will have noticed that the cricket nets have come down in order to make space for our new sports pavilion to be completed in 2020. A very exciting time ahead for sport and a chance to bring the parents and families, greater student cohort and players together in a centralised home venue for wider field sports.

Summer Intercol and AVSC

This week saw the Volleyball Intercol get underway at Pembroke. Our Boys' Open B team were outstanding, with a group comprised of different year levels playing some fantastic volleyball and the competition going Westminster's way. The Girls' Open B team also came away with a victory and played some great ball. Well done to both teams.

Our Open A competition was fierce and both teams gave their all on the day, but were unfortunately defeated by Pembroke who played more consistently throughout the matches. It was a timely reminder for our athletes who will be heading away this weekend to the Australian Volleyball Schools Cup in Queensland. As I was telling the boys after the match, from a coaching perspective, I never worry much when teams lose games going into big events, as long as we learn the lessons we need to learn from the challenges experienced and can be a better team for it.

This weeks lesson was one of consistency and personal emotional management. At times we were definitely the best team on the court, but making individual spectacular plays doesn’t always end in a win. More often than not, composure and consistent pressure will get the job done.

So as the teams head off to AVSC I hope that the lessons learned will put them in good stead for the week ahead, where again they will be met with many challenges and some excellent volleyball teams. We can always control our composure regardless of the opposition, our teamwork regardless of the score line and our individual efforts regardless of outcomes.

I look forward to supporting the teams in Queensland this upcoming week and look forward to seeing some more hotly contested matches! A quick thanks to the managers of the Volleyball teams who will be travelling with the teams. There has been an immense amount of organisation gone into the logistics of getting our teams to the event and through the year, we appreciate your efforts! And best of luck to our coaches and teams for the event and also to our cricket team managers and coaches who are headed into Intercol this weekend - best of luck!

Yours in High Performance,

Lauren Soderberg
Head of Sport Development and High Performance