Waitakere netballer leads Books In Homes

By Stephen Forbes

Former Silver Fern Linda Vagana is now the general manager of the Books in Homes charitable trust after an international netball career spanning 61 tests.

She was interested to see the old photo we took of her from our files and says it probably dates back to around 1996.

"I can kind of remember when it was taken but not where," she says.

"It was in the early days when Sheryl Scanlan and I had just been named in the Silver Ferns.

"I'd probably been in the team three or four years when Sheryl joined."

Ms Vagana retired from playing for the Northern Force in the National Bank Cup last year after playing first class netball for 17 years.

She retired from the Silver Ferns in 2002.

"I felt it was the time to pursue my career," she says.

"I enjoyed playing but I was missing out on a whole lot of other things like spending time with the family because my weekends were all taken up with netball."

The Massey resident initially found work at the Auckland University of Technology as a marketing coordinator while she completed a social sciences degree.

But the career opportunity with the Books in Homes charitable trust, which promotes reading in low-decile schools throughout the country, arose after she graduated.

The trust was founded by author Alan Duff.

Ms Vagana was originally involved with a programme while she was still playing netball.

"They were looking for role models who could go out to schools," she says.

The trust's board asked her to consider taking over as general manager.

"It all kind of fell into place with all the other things I'm passionate about," she says.

"It was an opportunity I had to grab."

Ms Vagana enjoys the job.

"It's great to see the changes with the young children we are working with.

"From an educational point of view it's great to be involved with a charity that's making a difference every day. It's a real change coming from a marketing and advertising background - I've learnt so much."

Ms Vagana is still involved in netball. She helped out as a player for Samoa at the 2003 Netball World Cup and briefly took up a coaching position with Samoan under 21 team before being named coach of the first team last year.

She travels to Samoa once a month to help the team prepare for the 2007 Netball World Cup in November.

She says it is hard for the smaller nations like Samoa to compete and get regular games with leading teams from countries like New Zealand, Australia and England.