Hawks proudly turned 20 this season, and at the start of the netball year we did a lot of reflecting on that milestone. We changed our ethos and constitution and embarked on a promise to do more with our club. To improve access to our sport, to give more opportunities to those that feel barriers to our game, and to help improve the lives of our netball family and community by developing skills on and off the netball court.

This is how we came about our ambition to run 20 events throughout the year to support our goals and celebrate our 20 years. This included community events such as taster sessions for walking, mens and inclusive netball. We partnered with local groups to support/run sessions with Deaf netball groups and LCFC's Active women group. We didn't leave out sisters, mum, brothers and dads, with a Family Netball session, which was an amazingly fun afternoon of families playing alongside each other.

Our first Community Event was to host a inner-city schools tournament to improve knowledge and awareness of our sport by liaising directly with PE departments in several Leicester secondary schools. The Schools tournament in particular was a brilliant event, and with special guests from England Netball attending, giving all the students participating the chance to ask them questions and take photos - everyone had a great time. Following the event and ties with the school PE teachers, we were able to offer 5 girls a fully-funded year of netball via our Community Programme.

We held a variety of fundraising events across the season from cake sales, clothes sales to raffles, quizzes and bag packing to financially support that programme and ensure that in addition to the free netball training and matches, we could buy netball kit / trainers and pay for access to our socials events for the girls in the programme.

We built new skills for our players and their families, by offering self-defence classes, life saving CPR training with the British Heart Foundation. We recognise how important volunteering is, so gave everyone opportunities to volunteer and improve the local area with tree planting alongside the Leicester Environmental Volunteers group and local Park Run organisers.

We offered our juniors free opportunities to see the best of our sport up close, with 2 opportunities to be ball girls/volunteers at the NSL Season Opener and the Mens & Mixed Netball competition in Nottingham. Additionally we offered up 20 free tickets for our juniors to experience a Loughborough Lightning match, all of these events totally inspired our young players to give netball their all and maybe one day become a professional netball athlete themselves!

We made use of usual 'down time', when sports halls were closed for exams we used the usual training nights to put on educational workshops for our juniors which focused on netball rules and principles, as well as a dedicated nutrition and female health workshop.

Tournaments were a massive part of our season also - in addition to attending tournaments for regional competitions, we also held our own junior tournaments, in which 23 teams attended!

Our programme didn't leave out our younger players, when we hosted a transition holiday camp - dedicated to girls in Year 5 & 6 to edcatethe on the transition to 7-aside netball, with lots of fun and games/activities included in the day.

Finally we spread the word, and asked all of our netball community to get involved with a Donation Drive, whereby all our local Leicester Leagues agreed to put out boxes for donations, smellies, gift sets and sanitary items which players contributed to with gusto, with 3 large boxes donated to the Leicester Women's Aid refuge organisation.

We have had an amazing year, topped off by a fantastic haul of awards both from our local leagues, but also from the Netball One Awards - which was a wonderful moment, and recognition for our club and all of the volunteers that made the above happen. To be awarded the 'Club of the Year' award and receive the Inclusion Award, on top of individual awards for Coach of the Year (Jenny Williams) and Unsung Hero (Sarah Cottrell) was the cherry on top of the cake!

We have been inspired by what a netball club can achieve, what our players, families and our community can do with a little bit of effort and a strong sense of ambition to change and improve our sport and the lives of our players. I really would encourage all grassroots clubs to think about one or two things they can do to improve the netball world around them - it's been a truly inspiring experience!

Thank you to all of our amazing netball family, our local league and regional committees - all of your support made this possible. Here's to a fantastic new season!