The webinars and workshops are conducted by the Office of Sport and feature topics of interest for high level officials that are designed to help them progress along their sport’s officiating pathway. These webinars can only be accessed via an invitation from a State Sporting Organisation.
Where it is possible to record the session these webinars and workshops will be available on this page of the Office of Sport website for anyone to view for a limited time.
High Performing Officials Webinar
High Performing Officials Webinar – 6 December 2024
Presenters Darryl Durham & Steve Clark
This session be a Q&A with a highly regarded ex-NRL referee, Steve Clark who is now responsible for officiating development for Basketball NSW. Steve will discuss his experiences on the following topics during his presentation:
- High Performance Officiating
- Dealing with adversity - success v failure
- Making decisions under pressure and fatigue
- Living up to expectations
- Building a reputation
This presentation will provide an insightful look into the life of an official at the top level.
Watch more webinars in this series
Presenters: Simon Taufel & Claire Polosak
This webinar was presented by presented by Simon Taufel and it featured an open discussion with Claire Polosak (international cricket umpire) on her officiating journey and her learnings about recruiting and developing female officials in the sport of cricket.
During the webinar participants interacted with both Simon and Claire via the chat function and the webinar looked at many topics through the lense of the development of female officials in sport.
High Performing Officials Webinar – 6 June 2024
Presenter: Simon Taufel
Transitioning from Representative Level Officiating to National International Level Officiating
The session covered:
- Tips, tools, and traps (through the lens of the official).
- Examples of officiating pathway success and failures.
- What the official wants/needs to progress to national/international levels and be successful.
The webinar was interactive, and participants were asked to come prepared to discuss the following 3 questions:
- What do you think an official needs to cope with the demands of national and international officiating?
- What is the most common reason (to you) that an official doesn’t achieve their potential at the highest level?
- What do we need to do to increase the official’s trust in the pathway to national/international levels?
Presenter Darryl Durham
Topic: Officiating Pathways and Transitioning to Representative Officiating
Identified officiating pathways are essential for the engagement of officials throughout any sporting system. Constructing and implementing both a performance and participation pathway is key to the retention of officials.
This session examines the design and implementation of pathways to assist officials in their development and performance. A case study will be shared with participants, which can be contextualised in various environments.
Topic: Teamwork in Officiating – Part Two
Presenter: Simon Taufel
Officiating Teamwork – Taufel’s Tips, Tools and Traps
- Taufel’s 7 Traits of a Top Officiating Team.
- Practical learnings and examples of officiating teamwork in action.
- Teamwork out of competition and in it.
- The paradox challenge of individual versus team progress.
Group discussion and collective input.
Presented by Daryl Durham
Teamwork and the Culture behind the Teamwork
This high-performance webinar will look at teamwork and culture. The performance of officials relies heavily on the success of “the team” both on and off the competition environment.
Good people make a good team. So, what makes good people? It is the culture of the high-performance officiating community, and the desire to service the needs of the competition at the highest level.
Topic: Tackling Tough Situations – Part Two
Presenter: Simon Taufel
Wednesday May 24, 6.00pm
As sports officials we are constantly dealing with tough situations both on and off the competitive environment. This webinar is the second of a two-part series, dealing with “Tackling Tough Situations”. Simon Taufel returns to look at more processes that can be implemented to address some of the tough situations that may confront you in your role as an official. Simon has tackled this topic through an open discussion rather than his standard presentation style, he brought a breadth of experience to the topic because, apart from his well renowned officiating experience in cricket, he has experience as a coach and as chairperson for a local community cricket association. The interaction with the attendees stimulated some great conversations on this topic.
Note: Part One, delivered by Darryl Durham on April 13, is at the top of the list below if you wish to watch that in conjunction with this webinar
Presenter: Darryl Durham
As sports officials we are constantly dealing with tough situations both on and off the competitive environment. This webinar is the first of a two-part series, dealing with “Tackling Tough Situations”. In this webinar, we will specifically look at some alternative processes, that can be implemented, to address the tough situations that confront you in your role as an official.
Darryl has worked in the sports industry for the past 32 years specialising in sport education and development. The past 15 years has seen Darryl specialise in high performance officiating development, in particular working with high performance mentors and mentees, in the Australian Sports Commission’s National Officiating Scholarship Program. He has consulted to many National Sporting Organisations on officiating and coaching development. He is presently Basketball ACT’s Officiating Coordinator developing the skills of new referees, and further enhancing the skills of all referees in the ACT through to Women’s National League (WNBL) and National Basketball League (NBL). He was also appointed as a WNBL Referee Coach for the 2021/2022 season.
Presenter: Simon Taufel
Managing the match / participant
- Art of discretion
- What does the game/sport expect?
- Effective communication
Technique
- Positioning
- Buying time/considering options
- Focus v concentration
Decision making
- Staying in the moment
- Trusting yourself and the process
Watching the play
Presenter: Darryl Durham
The Art of Officiating – Off the Field, will deliver concepts and case studies, of how you the official, can assist in developing yourself “off” the playing environment for better performances “on” the playing environment
The webinar discusses the following: topics: Planning, Preparation, Coachability, Wellbeing, Making yourself more selectable, Self-Reflection and Dealing with your peers.
For the past 15 years Darryl has specialised in high performance officiating development, in particular working with high performance mentors and mentees, in the Australian Sports Commission’s National Officiating Scholarship Program. He has consulted to many National Sporting Organisations on officiating development, and he is currently Basketball ACT’s Officiating Coordinator where he is responsible for developing the skills of new referees into basketball and enhancing the skills of all referees through to Women’s National League (WNBL) and National Basketball League (NBL) referees within the ACT. He was also appointed as an WNBL Referee Coach during the 2021/2022 season.
Presenter: Darryl Durham
This webinar follows the themes discussed in the webinar on March 16 2022 - Good to Great. In this webinar we explore to apply this knowledge to assist you to become great. For example, the support personnel that you require to take your officiating skills and performances to the next level. The webinar examines who you need in your corner and how to use this support to gain maximum performance outcomes. This session will also require you to reflect on previous performances and how these performances could have been better using support personnel.
Presenter: Simon Taufel
Simon Taufel will cover the fundamentals of how a sports official might move from good to great and will interact with participants via their chat comments and questions.
Session objectives
- Support your development goals
- Help identify your performance gap
- Offer tips and tools to be your best
Session Components
- Attitude and Teamwork
- Preparation
- Match and participant management
- Technique
- Knowledge
Decision making
Presenter: Simon Taufel
Overview: In this interactive 60-minute webinar, Simon Taufel explored why developing a support network is vital to achieving and sustaining success as a sports official. He also provided an insight into several elements of one and the types of people who could be a part of an official’s support network. He shared his own experiences with his own support network and the attendees were asked to share some of their experiences as well.
Main elements of the session included:
- Why is a support network needed? (the benefits)
- What can a sports official do to build an effective support network?
- Who should be in that network?
Presenter: Daryl Durham
Darryl has worked in the sports industry for the past 32 years specialising in sport education and development. The past 15 years has seen Darryl specialise in high performance officiating development, in particular working with high performance mentors and mentees, in the Australian Sports Commission’s National Officiating Scholarship Program.
He presently consults to a number of National Sporting Organisations on officiating and coaching development
The Mentoring Environment
Mentors are a crucial component of any blended learning educational program. Mentors provide a nurturing and supportive environment for mentees to grow and learn. The best mentors, build resilience, problem solving and critical thinking skills in their mentees. Mentors must have the ability to “ask questions” rather than “tell” when communicating with their mentees.
Mentees play a significant role within any sporting organisation, as they are the future of any organisation.
In this webinar the following topics were explored:
- What is mentoring?
- What is the purpose of mentoring?
- What are the characteristics of a good mentor?
- What are the characteristics of a good mentee?
- How do we establish an effective mentoring environment?
Presenter - Simon Taufel, International Cricket Umpire
Prepare like a Pro
- What does world class preparation look like?
- How can I construct and annual plan or match plan that leads to better performance?
- How can we guard against complacency?
- Q&A
Presented by Simon Taufel
In this highly interactive webinar Simon Taufel covers the following topics:
- how we can better prepare to manage conflict,
- separate strategies to manage the issue and manage the person,
- self-reflection and a call to action.
Presented by Simon Taufel
- How do we prepare for the negative commentary / feedback / spotlight?
- Tips and advice
- How to we deal with the public / social media criticism when it happens?
- Tools and strategy
- How can we keep the focus on the players?
- Video and media examples to be used
Presented by Simon Taufel
- Officiating is not a science, it’s an art
- How do we lead a strong officiating culture in our sport that others are inspired to follow?
Which leadership soft skills will deliver a better officiating experience?
Presented by Simon Taufel
- The self-belief shield
- How can you develop a higher level of self-belief
- How this plays a role in making better decisions in pressure situations
- The decision-making process
- Leveraging off experience
- Tips to make more accurate decisions
- Managing pressure
- Tools to avoid pressure
- Tips to manage distractions
Presented by Simon Taufel
Simon is an international cricket umpire and will cover:
• How we can better prepare to manage conflict,
• Separate strategies to manage the issue and manage the person,
• Self reflection and a call to action.
The format of the webinar is presentation with participant questions and answers and it will last for a approximately one hour.
Here is a brief clip that provides some background on Simon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwIEitAgp4w
Presented by Simon Taufel
Simon Taufel, international cricket umpire, presented on the topic of “Discipline is the Difference” in progressing along a sport’s officiating pathway.
Here is a brief clip that provides some background on Simon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwIEitAgp4w