INTERVIEW: Katie Duncan on the WSAFC Women and Girls Plan

2025 has already proven to be an exciting year for Women and Girls across the club, with a number of ongoing initiatives supporting the WSAFC vision to be New Zealand's leading community club.

In addition to being committed to the NRF Gender Equity Charter, our club continues to take positive steps to implement activites from the 2025 Women's and Girls Plan.

We are fortunate to have Katie Duncan as our Head of Women's Football, who has shared insight on the projects coming up as well as a number of key events that are being hosted by the WSAFC Women and Girls Working Group in the coming weeks and months.

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Katie, you've been at the club six weeks now. What have your first impressions been, and what have you enjoyed so far?

It's been a great six weeks. I have loved it so far. I love the facilities, I love the people at the club, and just feel really supported as a coach and Head of Women's Football. It's great.

We're very fortunate as a club to have a very strong 2025 WSAFC Women’s and Girls Plan, which has been put together over the last few years. How important is it for you as a Head of Women's Football to have a girls' and women's plan to implement?

Yeah, I've been really, really impressed with seeing what the club does in the girls' and women's space, the volunteers that are driving this plan and just implementing a lot of actions, and whether that's improving the facilities or the programmes that we have in place.

I've been really, really impressed. And I think for the club, it is really important to just be driving, ensuring that we're making sure the girls and women are looked after and just how much we can improve in that space.

As part of that girls' and women's plan, what are some of the key programmes, initiatives and events that are coming up between now and the end of the season?

We have our general programmes in place, such as the Milo Fantails programme, Skill Centres and our Girls Only Days on our School Holiday Football programmes. We have our Women's Beginner Football 101 sessions that we run on a Tuesday morning. We have our Friday night girls' hub also, as well as all the other girls' and women’s teams that are playing throughout the week.

We also have some events coming up.  On the 21st of July, we have our mostly women's Premier team coming in to showcase and meet and greet younger players to share their experiences and to show what pathways that you can have in football.

We also have the event on the 31st of August, our last LOTTO NRFL Women’s Premiership home game at 2pm versus Tauranga Moana FC. Afterwards, we'll be having a meet and greet again with the younger players. You can check out these events on our website!

For our club members going forward as part of the 2025 WSAFC Women’s and Girls Plan, what should they be excited about?

Yeah, they should be excited about the programme just continuing to improve. Improvements being made throughout the club and an exciting place to be a part of.

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For upcoming events: https://wsafc.org.nz/women-and-girls-initiatives/events

For more information on our 2025 WSAFC Women’s and Girls Plan, please visit:

https://wsafc.org.nz/women-and-girls-initiatives/2025-women-and-girls-plan

If you would like to know more about or contribute to any of our in-progress initiatives then please contact Julie Dunn.