I started the day by waking up on the early side to get breakfast with the girls on the trip. Marni, Jules, Cami and I went to a cute Cafe that was about a 5 minute walk away from the hotel. We then met up with the rest of the group in the hotel lobby and walked over to the train station and got on an hour long train to Cronulla Beach.
Our first stop of the day was a typical Aussie beach side community. When we got off the train at our stop the beach was only two blocks away. We went straight to the beach and walked around the rocks exploring the area. Pictured above is Jack and Marni walking on the rocks and all of the girls posed in front of the ocean. I then got changed and went into the ocean with some of the other students. The ocean water today was cold but not as cold as the Bondi Beach pool.
We then took the train one stop and walked to the Points Bet Stadium, home Cronulla Sharks NRL Club. We got a tour of their facilities including both the home and visitors locker rooms. After the tour we got the opportunity to talk to three women on their team. As a woman in the sports industry it was amazing to be able to hard from such influential women who are paving the way for our future in the industry.
The first women we heard from was Lauren Chester, who is the Manager of Stadium Operations. She talked to us her past jobs in the industry and about game day with the Sharks. She was the GM of the Woman’s Arsonal Football (so American Soccer) team. Her job with the Sharks includes all of the game day staffing and the compliance the team has to do. This includes what the company does legally for example being able to have alcohol sold at the stadium. Above is a photo of Lauren showing us how her job works and a picture of her and the whole group.
We next talked to Jessica Macartney, who is the Head of Community & Government Relations. She illustrated the Community Outreach at the Sharks and showed our group the 2023-2026 Community Strategy. We talked about how they are a smaller community club and how that is her target audience. Sharks Have a Heart is their teams foundation and is something that she integrates into all of her work with the team. One of the biggest things I took from what she told us is that, “sport is a vehicle for change.” I also learned that media plays a large role in her job and below is their instagram that we got posted on! https://instagram.com/sharks.haveheart?igshid=NDBlY2NjN2I=
The last person we talked to at the Sharks was Rachal Allan, the Indigenous Programs Coordinator. She looks after the Sharks Deadly (which in Australia means cool or good) Choices Program in schools, coordinates the team’s Indigenous Rugby League Round, their Reconciliation Action Plan, and does health and wellbeing checks with Indigenous Community Members. She uses the national program to make changes for the aboriginal people and to educate the community. The whole club integrates the reconciliation action plan to move forward and innovate.
As a group we then got to toss the ruby league ball around with our guide and Michael Vehtic, who used to work for the Sharks. We did the 20 minute walk back to the train and took the hour ride back to our hotel in Sydney. When we got back we had dinner and decided to go out to see Vivid again tonight.
On our way we walked through the Victoria Building Mall and learned more about the history of the area from Mrs. and Professor Burton. Then we walked around, got food and made our way closer to the Sydney opera house. Above is a picture of Jack, Marni and I next to the Sydney Harbor Bride. Then we ended the night by going to the Sydney Opera House to see all of the lights included in vivid.
-Sarah P.
No comments:
Post a Comment