February Volunteer of the Month

Denise Craddock of Llanelli Adult League (a non-profit community initiative) was instrumental in its set up over 30 years ago and has played a pivotal role as League Chair ever since. Due to her unwavering support for netball in the Llanelli area, Denise is our first Volunteer of the Month for 2025!

Since its creation, the league has grown year-on-year and is currently home to 37 teams from 13 different clubs playing across four divisions. Clubs travel from all over West Wales, whether they be based in Carmarthen, Llanelli, Llandovery or Aberavon. Fixtures are played every Sunday across two locations, from 12pm to 8pm, and it’s the countless hours Denise’s spends managing and organising the league that has made it so successful despite facility challenges in the area. From fixtures to umpiring schedules, weekly results to end of season presentation evenings, Denise does it all! It’s also worth noting that Denise runs the league whilst now living down on the South Cost of England. Her dedication to netball in the community in which she was born and bred is second to none, as described by Sam Shingler (Committee Member of Llanelli Adult League):

“Denise has been the back bone of the Llanelli League for over 25 years or as long as I can remember. She’s a true trooper trying to support established and new up and coming teams into the league as well as having great joy in supporting the more established players with their pathway needs. She’s always promoting club successes as well as individuals within the league.”

Denise is at the forefront of developing players, coaches and umpires in the area and providing them with opportunities to upskill. Denise organises the ‘Coaches Developing Together’ programme and leads on monthly expert coaching sessions to introduce new methods and approaches to coaching for both experienced coaches, and those at the beginning of their coaching journey. The league is also proactive in organising closed courses to develop umpires in their area, and progress them through their C and B Awards. The league committee commented on these programmes and why its so important for their area:

“Programmes such as these ensure that the game is played to a high standard in our community.  It is one of the contributing reasons for the success of some of our young players in regional, national and Super League squads.”

Whilst being run as an adult league, Denise still has the young players of the area in mind and strives to create new opportunities to inspire the next generation of netballers. A successful fundraising event featuring former England captain and FleetEV National League commentator Pamela Cookey took place last season, raising thousands of pounds to support young Llanelli Adult League players who had been chosen for Wales Netball National Academies. Additionally, young netball players can meet their Llanelli-grown regional, national, and Super League Nxt Gen counterparts such as Nia Bullen from Sospans Netball Club at “meet the player” events. In order to expose young players to the high standards of netball and encourage and inspire them to keep playing and aim to be the best players they can be, Denise also collaborates with local clubs to provide opportunities for people of all ages to watch their division 1 matches.

Denise is never far from supporting and organising charity matches and tournaments to raise money for worthy causes. Just a few months ago, we featured a story reporting on the Charity Mixed Netball Tournament at Coleg Sir Gar. Thanks to Denise, we got to hear about this incredible event which raised £1,800 for Frazer, a young child currently battling Osteosarcoma. If you’d like to read more about this story, please click here: https://walesnetball.com/netball-for-good-community-story/.

A big thank you to the committee of Llanelli Adult League for detailing Denise’s vast commitments, and to Denise, for remaining committed, passionate, and motivated to providing incredible opportunities to the netballers of West Wales!

Wales Netball’s Volunteers of the Month will be announced at the beginning of every month, with an article going on our website and posts going out across all social media channels.

If you would like to nominate your coach, an umpire, or someone who helps your netball club and the wider community, complete the nomination form using this link – https://forms.gle/fREqFRkPFyHnoPRn6