The move was a family affair — Saraikin, her parents, and her three daughters decided to make the shift to a quieter part of the country.
Since then Saraikin has played for the Bloods and worked at a local school as a netball PSSA representative, through which she helps select the Riverina PSSA team.
As part of her 2022 direction as president of Tocumwal Netball Club, Saraikin is heavily emphasising junior development and giving everyone a chance to play.
As part of this, she hopes to start a netball competition at Cobram Sports Stadium.
She also plans to push for a stronger senior group of players as the older juniors players develop and start to move up in to senior competition level.
‘‘We want to try and give as much sport time to our student teams,’’ Saraikin said.
‘‘We have lots of 13 and 15 year old girls who want to play and only seven can play at one time.
‘‘We want to get that running so all the girls can get court time.
‘‘So junior development is a big focus for us.’’
Another aspect of the club Saraikin wants to upskill is umpiring — while Tocumwal could fill their teams last season, she said they could sometimes struggle to find umpires.
‘‘There always seems to be a shortage of umpires and to not have to worry about that so much would be great for us,’’ she said.
It comes down to sharing the load; rather than a few burning out by taking on too much, she hopes to make running the club a community effort.
‘‘If you’re all helping out it’s only a little bit for each person to do, and everyone’s involved in our successes.’’
Saraikin takes over from outgoing president Mel Herezo.
The full netball leadership team will be announced soon, along with pre-season training details.
