Why Joining MWBU is a great idea
What are the Benefits of Joining Manly Warringah Baseball Umpires ?
When you join MWBU you become part of one of the few locally based umpiring associations in NSW. Our core aims are to provide the highest standard of umpiring to the local Manly Warringah Competitions and to provide a pathway for development and growth for all umpires in the organisation.
Like any organisation how well it works and its effectiveness is down to the participation of its members. We encourage all our members and potential new members to get involved both with the basic running of the organisation itself but also in umpiring some of the games we’ve committed to cover. Assisting with fulfilling our commitments to the various Leagues is a key expectation of membership. Of course, this doesn’t mean all day every weekend or some massively time consuming commitment, but doing a few games occasionally particularly those that stretch your abilities will not only help MWBU flourish but also provide a great deal of personal satisfaction for you.
MWBU currently supply as many umpires as we can get on the field each week for the Manly Minor League competitions, Manly Masters when it runs and the Senior League games for Manly juniors. For many years now we have also coordinated umpiring of the Manly Juniors final series each that happens each March. This is an ongoing annual highlight.
Each week we generally have far more games wanting umpires than we can fill, so are always looking for new umpires to get involved. There is plenty of opportunity to do games.
MWBU has a core membership of highly experienced umpires, some of who are trained instructors for NSWBUA, have trained in the US and some have umpired internationally. We also have other experienced umpires who have 10+ years of experience as part of the association and many with 20 to 30 years overall umpire experience . All these people are available to partner with you at times to assist your development and growth.
Becoming a competent umpire is a journey which MWBU can assist with in a number of ways including MWBU training days, opportunity for partnering with experienced umpires and the provision of reviews of your umpiring skills by one of our instructors watching you umpire a game and providing a verbal and written feedback. As a developing umpire, partnering on games with experienced people, completing ongoing training when available, undertaking other self development efforts and approaching every learning opportunity with an attitude of openness for receive objective feedback and advice is the key improving your skills and advancing your umpiring career.
Working games with experienced people is one of the key benefits we offer and we often have older junior umpires work Minor League adult games with an experienced adult to assist them in improving their overall game, including aspects such as field mechanics, plate work , partner communication, division of responsibilities and game management (handling pressure situations).
One of the other key benefits of joining is the developing a comradery with your fellow umpires, making some new friends, satisfaction in learning how to be an effective team of umpires and getting support when needed from people who know the challenges of officiating sport and have lived experience of all that entails. I think all of that could be called personal growth. Its something that all active members of the organisation have had benefit of.
All new members joining MWBU have the option of the joining with our new starter pack that provides a MWBU shirt, hat, ball bag, counter, brush and notepad at a significantly discounted rate. This is our normal joining option.
Experienced umpires who already have their own equipment can opt just to take membership only.
Membership fees are due annually on 1 July each year.
We also have lifetime membership category as per our constitution. This is only available to existing financial members and must be proposed and voted on at our Annual General Meeting. Its purpose is to reward those members who have contributed substantially to the organisation over a significant period of time.
So come join MWBU, you won’t regret it.