Putting My Game Face On!

Sunday the 31st of March was the first home game for the West Coast Fever!
After spending every Wednesday in the office for the past 5 weeks I was itching to see everyone’s hard work pay off and finally be a part of such an exciting large scale sporting event.

I arrived fresh and ready for action at 8.30am on Sunday morning. The game didn’t commence until 11.10am but there was so much to do prior to the game. The first thing we needed to organise and set up was the ‘Business club. The West Coast Fever Business Club is a new initiative for 2013 which has been designed as an exclusive corporate networking club allowing business members and sponsors the chance to network and enjoy exclusive parking and catering at the exclusive pre match function. In preparation for this I helped Denise (Marketing Coordinator) and Daniel (Marketing Manager) set up signage around the stadium and in our Business Club room. The majority if this included setting up tear drop banners and pull up banners as well as making sure the PowerPoint presentation and microphone were ready to go!

At 10.00am business club members started to turn up, I stood at the door and greeted the members as the came in and ushered them into the room. At around 10.15 speeches were made by the coach, Norma Plummer and also the business club ambassador and previous player, Susan Fuhrman. As members mingled and enjoyed food and drinks I went around and collected business cards for the business card raffle. I managed to speak to the chairman of Netball WA, the Chief Executive Officer of the Water Corporation and other representatives from our sponsors including Rosendorff, Nova, Telstra and the Sunday times. I also did a quick head count to see how many people attended the event for our reference and for future comparison.

After an hour of mingling and eating the business club members made their way down to their seats to watch the game. The business club had been a success! It ran very smoothly and we received some good feedback from people. What a relief! But the work for me and the marketing team had only just begun. I then helped pack up all the signage and clean up the business club room.

We then made our way down to the courtside and managed to watch the second half of the game. I felt very privileged to be sitting courtside, watching what unfolded to be a fantastic game of netball! The West coast Fever won 80-53 over the Northern Mystics. It was Fever's highest ever score in the ANZ Championship, beating their previous best of 67. Everyone was on high and so happy with such a big win, what a great start to the season!!

After the game the players came over to the stands to sign posters and other merchandise Denise and myself made sure that all the players had a permanent marker, and that they distributed themselves round the stadium evenly, we didn’t want any fans to miss out! Whilst this was going on, I also kept an eye out for Emily (Media and Communications Manager) who signaled me to send players over for interviews with FOX Sports and SBS. I then assisted in packing up the remaining signage and making sure everything was collected, tidy and in our storage container which is located out the back of challenge stadium.

 After the game the players and netball WA members as well as fans are all invited down to the boulevard in Floreat for post-game drinks and socialising. After everything was packed up and done at challenge stadium I made my way down to The Boulevard for some well-deserved down time. Daniel, The marketing Manager (and my boss) bought me a drink for all my hard work for the day, but I made sure I only had one and kept things professional. Finishing up, I left the boulevard around 3.00pm and went straight home for a nap, I was exhausted! What a day!

Today’s game day experience allowed me to realise the importance of networking and building relationships with an organisation’s members and its sponsors. Being a part of the business club has already given me a chance to make some valuable industry contacts and I am looking forward to developing my relationships with these individuals as the season goes on.

Today’s game also made me appreciate the amount of organisation, preparation and hard work it takes to pull off a sporting event like today’s game. It really requires a dedicated team of individuals pulling together to make everything run smoothly. Bring on the next home game for the fever! Let’s hope they can make it another home game win!

Rebecca

PS: If anyone is interested in coming to the games, you can find tickets and fixture information at

http://www.westcoastfever.com.au/index.cfm?fuseaction=Main