Out-of-the-box thinking from Frankie Stewart is taking cricket to girls who wouldn't usually get the chance to play. And her passion for community has earned her a national award, Paul Montague writes.
Surely only someone with buckets of creativity and ingenuity would come up with the idea to put a waterslide alongside a cricket pitch, for girls to slide in on every time they score a run.
That’s the kind of innovation and outside-the-box thinking which won Frances Stewart the ‘Community Cricket Activator of the Year’ at this year’s New Zealand Cricket Awards.
The Porirua born and raised Stewart, who goes by ‘Frankie’, was honoured for setting up community programmes in Wellington to get more girls playing – or simply interested in - cricket, with the accent on accessibility.
She’s far from a cricket obsessive, however, and living proof you need not have been involved with a sport right through from a young age to make a difference.
Until she started her role as community development manager for women and girls at Cricket Wellington three years ago, Stewart – a “strong supporter of equality of access " - had never attended a live game of cricket.
“All I really had was two years of junior cricket at my local Porirua club in my primary school days. Nothing else at all,” the 36-year-old says.
“I come from a true community participation point of view. Although I am turning the corner getting to know the intricacies of the game I hadn't come across before.”
Stewart, whose side interest has always been the arts, has long been empowered by the aspect of community - she won a scholarship and graduated from Lincoln University in the field of community development.
"I was a Porirua girl among a load of farmers," she recalls.
After two years working with the YMCA in Auckland, Stewart ended up living overseas for 10 years. Following a stint nannying, she took up a role in London which had a bearing on her current position - working for a social care charity, as leader of their community engagement team.
“We had to connect disadvantaged people with their communities,” she says. “It was about making sure they could have access to things like recreational and sports clubs and job training. It was an amazing role.”
Since starting at Cricket Wellington three years ago, Stewart has either fostered and grown, or initiated, greatly successful programmes in junior and youth girls’ cricket. Programmes like YEAH! Girls and YEAH! Girls Move, Summer Smash and the Young Leaders' programme – which was created by 14-year-old Queen Margaret College student Dhriti Girish.
YEAH! Girls was originally started by NZ Cricket in 2018 as a pilot to get young females involved, or just interested in, cricket. Its target demographic is school years 7-13. Each hub is spread around the Wellington region and run on a different weekday. The concept is 'Have a go' and the one-hour sessions are run by young women in the role of 'activators'.
“We've been able to use YEAH! Girls as a way of reaching communities that perhaps we hadn't been very good at servicing," explains Stewart. "That's the whole point of spreading it around different communities.”
Out of YEAH! Girls came YEAH! Girls Move - the brainchild of Stewart and a natural extension designed to engage and keep senior high school girls not only in cricket, but in general fitness and well-being. It began last year.
“We had lots of older girls come in who weren't as physically active before that,” Stewart says.
“YEAH! Girls Move is more of a peer-led programme. We run it in lunchtimes and the girls don't even need to sign up - they can just rock up on the day. We’re looking to expand it to more schools next season. Unless they’re really achieving in organised sport, it can be quite easy for 15 to 17-year-old girls to stop.”
What becomes clear during our interview is how cricket is playing a part in something bigger in the programmes Stewart oversees - maintaining the hauora (health) and the oranga (well-being) of the girls and young women involved.
“For me, it's about making a difference to the girls on an individual level with their well-being, and hopefully that will lead on to connecting them with their community,” she says.
Stewart also needed a plan to get younger girls interested in cricket. So she came up with Summer Smash for Year 3-6 students, a team-based competition running now for two seasons, with about 100 participants in each. There’s an emphasis on accessibility and enjoyment above anything else.
“We aimed to put Summer Smash at places very near schools so people can walk to them if possible. We try to be conscious of accessibility and flexibility. One week a school might turn up with one team, another week with three. We just fit everybody in.
“I tell my game leaders, the older girls, to make sure the scores don't get too lopsided. The game leaders model what to do and how to play during the game. There are some girls who've never picked up a bat before.”
And that waterslide? "The last day is always good. It's a whānau day and we involve as many people as possible. We had the waterslide along the wicket for the players to slide in on whenever they scored a run."
Possibly even more significant for Stewart was forming a young leaders’ programme for high school girls after being approached by junior girls cricketer, Dhriti Girish.
“Dhriti is amazing; there was nothing else like this in existence,” Stewart says. “It's all about mentoring, which was a big part of my previous job, so I latched onto her idea.”
Across two years, 31 participants have experienced a combination of learning life leadership skills and how to mentor others, including the participants on YEAH! Girls and Summer Smash. The girls can also do NZ Cricket’s Advanced Foundation programme, tutored by former White Fern Justine Dunce, doing level one umpiring and learning more about leadership from former German Olympic rower Tina Manker. Girish, coming up to 17 now, helps run the modules.
Young Leaders has been such a hit it also won a NZ Cricket award - the 2022 Female Engagement Initiative of the Year.
Stewart admits there have been some pushbacks to her work focusing on opportunities for girls and young women.
“There has been some opposition - from women as well as men. Comments like, 'Girls have more playing opportunities than boys. You should be running 'Young Leaders' for young men too’,” she says.
“My answer would be there are less girls than boys playing cricket and significantly less women than men coaching and leading cricket. Until the playing field is equal, there’s space for tailored programmes for different needs and communities.
“There could be scope in the future to expand these programmes, but as it stands the programmes are there to better suit girls and young women.”
Community development doesn't seem a particularly easy road to navigate, and Stewart almost headed down another path.
“I nearly studied fine arts at university. I painted for many years and I'm also an avid consumer of all the great exhibitions we have locally or coming out of New Zealand. I was spending a lot of Saturdays working with my local raranga harakeke (flax weaving) group, which is such a privilege considering it's not my birthright.”
She was also part of an unusual art collaboration during the Cricket World Cup in New Zealand this year.
"Cricket Wellington paired up with the Wellington City Gallery to explore the pioneering work of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, and how that synergy could relate to the current state of international women's sport,” she says. “That was an interesting moment because two big interests of mine collided. It was pretty cool.”
So what drives Stewart to give so much of her boundless energy to her communities?
“In my line of work I think it's the individual stories. One of our first-year Young Leaders started coaching junior cricket and now she sits on a senior club committee and she implemented a recycling system at the club,” Stewart says.
And the success stories are not just confined to the senior girls' ranks. Two of the younger girls introduced to cricket in Summer Smash were flagbearers at the World Cup.
“They told me they were going to play club cricket next season. In a short space of time they've basically gone from never having picked up a cricket bat, to that. That’s amazing,” Stewart says.
Frances Stewart. Remember the name. I can't help feeling we'll be hearing more from her in the coming years, perhaps even in a governance role. With more waterslides.
