Welcome to the new season of Hornsby Umpires and to the kick-off of our 24-year strong umpire development program! Kick off is not far away as we start on the 14th September 2024!

 

Our training program is for everyone regardless of age or experience! If you play softball adding umpiring to your day is a great experience and opportunity to learn new skills and to meet new people.    

 

No background in softball is required to learn to be an umpire! All you Mums,and Dads are welcome to join the program. In fact, just about all of our senior umpires were introduced to umpiring by their daughters wanting to play softball. It was certainly the case for me!    

 

The Hornsby Umpire Development program combines the NSW Softball NSW Umpire development program with supplementary material from our own experiences at the local Hornsby Association level.  Many of the Umpires involved in the Hornsby training program have had extensive experience at the highest levels of umpiring in NSW and come to Hornsby Association with a view to pass on their skills and experience. 

 

The Umpire Development Program is made up of the following key components which we will cover over the course of the 2024/2025 season. 

1. Umpire Signals 
2. The Plate Umpire
3. The Base Umpire
4. Game Management
5. Application of the Rules
6. Rules Exam (Not as scary as it sounds)
7. Umpire Uniform 
8. Bringing it together 

 

The main expectation we have of all our umpires is to come along and enjoy the experience. You have the option to simply umpire games with friends and earn some money or, if you like, work on developing your skills to go further with your umpiring career and even gain your ASF accreditation. Whatever your choice we are here to support your umpiring goals! 

 

But what we do expect is to treat our umpiring team the same way you treat any other team you play in. We only expect you to do your best (not get every decision right) and support your umpiring team mates. When you are assigned to games you are part of a team so with this comes responsibility to turn up and reply to emails. We completely understand playing comes before umpiring and have always supported this. We also understand sometimes you may not be feeling well on the day. All we ask is that you let us know in advance, so we can reallocate your duties in time. When assigned umpires do not turn up to allocated games you let down not only your fellow umpires but our reputation and most importantly you have let down the two teams waiting for you to umpire.  

 

• An email is sent on each Monday asking for availability. Please respond and advise what times are good for you. 
• On  some Wednesday nights I will send the weekly Umpire Training newsletter with training material and focus areas for the next Saturday
• On Friday night you will receive another email with allocations, so you have an idea which game you are doing. 
• On the Saturday please come to the umpire area and look for your name on the board just to confirm. If your name is not on the board please come see Myself Peter and we can fix this up. Pls note its always worth checking this board because things change quickly! 
• Please come back to the umpire area 15 min before the allocated times. This is the time to find your team say hello and probably do some gossiping! If you don’t know anyone that’s OK, come find me Peter.
• With 5 min to go you go out to the allocated diamonds with your umpire team making sure you take a free bottle of water and your clicker.

 

If you have any questions or wish to have a chat please feel free to contact Peter M at hdsa.umpires@gmail.com