After receiving a Change Our Game Community Activation Grant in 2022-23, Burwood Cricket Club (BCC) got straight to work developing a strategic plan to level the playing field for women and girls in their club.

Unbeknownst to BCC at the time, these decisions would go on to create far greater impact on their local community than they could have imagined and positioned the club to win the 2024 Good Sports State Club of the Year.

With help from the grant and as part of their ‘Education to Build Equity’ program, BCC hosted its first ‘Fix the Mix’ event which brought together key stakeholders from over 50 community cricket clubs to discuss how to create sustainable change in community cricket.

Based on the success of the event, a second event was held in February this year and focused on providing clubs with practical recommendations on empowering their female programs and developing female leaders and their involvement at a grassroots level.

BCC also used a portion of their funding to provide an opportunity for an international cricketer, Modester (Mode) Mupachikwa from Zimbabwe to spend the Summer both playing at the club and providing specialist coaching and mentoring to BCC’s junior female programs.

Mode also participated in the ‘Fix the Mix’ panel discussions and through connections made during her time at the club, was able to help facilitate BCC’s first-ever ‘Healthy Living Day’ in January.

This day saw over 100 people of Zimbabwean descent come together at BCC with Mode delivering cricket drills for young girls who had never been exposed to cricket before.

With all the success, BCC was nominated for Cricket Victoria’s 2024 Community Partnership Award which recognises clubs for building community-based partnerships that provide positive outcomes to the cricket community.

BCC proudly received Runners Up in this category, however that isn’t their greatest achievement this year.

The club also won the 2024 Good Sports State Club of the Year for Victoria (Runners Up nationally). This award involved over 12,000 clubs across Australia, across all sporting codes, and recognises clubs who are passionate about their community, their members and making their clubs the best they can be.

President of BCC, Kate Bellamy is overjoyed with what the club has been able to achieve since receiving a Change Our Game Community Activation Grant.

“The impact of Burwood Cricket Club receiving this grant has been much farer reaching than we could have ever imagined.”

“It provided the vehicle to create a powerful network of like-minded, grassroots cricket clubs who are now sharing their ideas and successes to continue to drive female participation across all levels of community cricket.”

“We are proudly educating and engaging more male champions to help with this and together are creating a recognition of why gender equality in cricket is important. It isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s a must have if we want to collectively promote cricket as a modern and inclusive sport for everyone.”