By Kirra Livingstone
THE Suncoast Hinterland Softball Club has had a 50 per cent increase in membership as the summer softball season gets underway.
Due to the U18 Women’s State Championships and torrential rain the season opening was postponed to October 15 and 16.
Secretary Karen Robe said the club has been busy with new registrations and sign on days and ‘come and try’ days, but said she was feeling positive for the coming season.
“It’s been a little bit crazy with the rain getting in the way of sign on and come and try days, but it’s not going too bad, we are getting lots of new registrations, which is great,” she said.
“Our intent this season was to increase our membership and get more people playing softball, but we are also just trying to get as much game time on the field as possible in this season.
“We even got a few new registrations from the U18 Women’s State Championships which we hosted because they saw all the teams but didn’t originally realise there was even a softball club here.”
The club hosted the U18 Women’s State Championships on September 30 and October 1 and 2, which Karen said was a great opportunity to expand the exposure of the club.
“For us to be able to run those sorts of events, it’s nice to have small associations be able to showcase their grounds,” she said.
“Softball is still a minority sport, and a lot of people still don’t even know that softball is here and when we run these big events people realise there is softball here.
“It was an awesome weekend and we ended up not being short for volunteers, it was very successful.”
The Sunshine Coast Council have also confirmed the building of a new car park at the club as part of the local budget funding, which Karen joked they had been waiting on for about 15 years.