St Monica's Netball Club Moonee Ponds

St Monica’s Netball Club is a non-for-profit committee run club based in Moonee Ponds, Victoria, with a long standing affiliation with St Monica’s Parish Primary School. 

The club fields teams from age seven through to Open age sections of the competition, and runs a Woolworths NetSetGO program for children aged five to ten. Our players train at StMonica's Parish Primary School, and we have 13 teams registered in the Essendon District Netball Association (EDNA) Winter and Spring seasons, played at Riverside Courts Complex in Ascot Vale.  

St Monica's Netball Club was founded in 2000 by a group of parents who wanted their kids to have somewhere to play. 

That's how it began. Just parents, a Saturday morning, and a shared belief that community sport was worth showing up for. 

More than twenty-five years on, that simple idea has become something much harder to put into words.

It lives in the Under 9 player who turns up nervous on her first day, bibs slightly too large, and finds, before the season is out, that she has a best friend she didn't have before. In the Under 13 who discovers she's braver than she thought. In the Under 17 who learns what it means to lead. And in the young woman who comes back year later to coach.

It lives in the parents on the sideline, the ones who started as strangers and became, somewhere between the orange quarters and the after-game debrief, the kind of friends you keep for life.

Hundreds of stories live inside this club. Stories of kids learning what it means to commit to something, to show up when it's cold, to lose well and win with grace. Stories of families finding their people on the sidelines, week after week. 

That's what this place has always been. 

None of it runs itself. It never has.

The first committee started from nothing. Every registration was handled by hand, on paper, one form at a time. There was no website, no online ordering, no digital anything. Just parents figuring it out as they went. What they also built wasn’t just a club, but a philosophy, where belonging and improvement go hand in hand. 

They held that foundation together through the hardest years anyone could have predicted - Covid, lockdowns and uncertainty. Keeping the club alive and securing grants. When their players grew up and moved on, new parents arrived alongside them, ready to take their place. 

The committee that followed added to it in their own ways, building on what was there and leaving it better for whoever came next. 

Over time, that meant putting things in place that make the club easier to run, the website, uniform and merch ordering, small things that add up for whoever comes next. 

Every single one of them was a volunteer. Every single one started exactly where you are now, as a parent on the sideline, watching their child run onto the court.

New people find their way onto the committee all the time, warmly welcomed alongside those already there, bringing something of their own and finding their place. The parents who step up, find that they get back more than they give. New friendships. A front-row seat to a community showing up for each other, season after season. 

They become part of something that has been quietly growing since 2000, when a group of parents just wanted their kids to have somewhere to play.

If something in you is curious, if you've ever watched your child on that court and felt like you wanted to give something back to the place that gave them this, we'd love to hear from you.

stmonicasnetballclub@gmail.com

St Monica's is run entirely by parents, people who started out exactly where you are now, watching their kid run onto a court for the first time. 

Our committee makes the decisions that shape this club. Where we invest, how we grow, what kind of experience every player and family has here. It's a small group doing something genuinely meaningful, and every few years, a new group of parents steps up and takes it on. That's how this club has worked since 2000, and it's why it still works today.

Current Committee: 

President: Sabrina Bellomo

Secretary: Meika Belbruno

Treasurer: Sandro Campolongo

Head Coach: Gleni Zucco

EDNA Representatives: Meika Belbruno / Sabrina Bellomo

Registrations Officer: Christine Cocuzza

Uniforms & Equipment Officer: Pete Beckett

Child Safety & Compliance Officer: Dave Bonnici

Marketing & Communications: Renee Frantzeskos 

General Committee Members: Milly Haynes, Katie Stafford

We are currently recruiting for several roles in Social Media, Sponsorships and Fundraising. If you've ever thought about getting more involved, this is where to start.

Email us at stmonicasnetballclub@gmail.com