HOW do you measure success in sport? Is there a formula that you can work towards, or is it just as simple as noting down the numbers of medals won at major championships?

In Glasgow, at the excellent spectacle that was the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Team Scotland had an impressive haul of 19 gold, 15 silver and 19 bronze medals. This success was testament to the hard work and investment that had gone into the elite performance programmes for many years prior to the Games, and the support extended to all sports from myriad agencies.

However, to me, another marker of success is sustainability, an increase in membership and, in particular for women participating in sport, a higher profile of the sport in question and its athletes.

There is one sport that has managed to achieve all three – netball. Many girls play it at school and it is currently having something of a renaissance.

Exciting news released by Netball Scotland confirmed that they have been awarded one of 10 franchise places in the 2017 Vitality Netball Superleague, organised by England Netball. Scottish Sirens will face one Welsh and eight English teams in a competition showcasing the best of the UK’s netball talent to the public.

Play will start in the league in February, with Super Saturday set to return and start the new campaign in style. The Sirens will play their home games at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, which hosted the extremely successful World Youth Netball Championships in 2013.

Netball is also one of the sports selected to work out of Scotland’s new Sports Performance Centre, Oriam, at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and an early opportunity has been grasped to showcase the sport in the state-of-the-art facility before its official opening at the end of next month.

Scotland and Northern Ireland will square up over two days on Saturday and Sunday, August 13 and 14, and tickets for both games sold out within an hour of public release.

The Scottish Thistles are currently ranked 10th in the world with Northern Ireland just two places behind them, so the games will be evenly matched and will deliver fierce on-court competition as they battle it out in front of the home crowd.

Netball Scotland’s other success is their Bounce Back to Netball programme. Created in response to the positive impact of netball both during and after the 2014 Games, it aims to deliver fun sessions to women and men over the age of 18 across Scotland.

It has seen more than 2,000 people take up the sport and enjoy getting fit in a fun and friendly environment. Understanding the needs of women (and men) who want to get into sport, the Bounce Back programme ensures that the worry is taken out of that initial step on to the court, by not requesting that everyone is dressed in traditional netball kit, but is comfortable in a T-shirt, with leggings or shorts or something similar.

There are three important messages delivered at a Bounce Back session: A: No need to have knowledge of the sport. B: No requirement to turn up week in, week out as you pay as you play. C: Fun is guaranteed.

Netball is also one of the suggested activities in our #womenactive challenge, so if you are a Bounce Back player we would love to have some pics of you and your team-mates on our womenactiveatwork.co.uk website.

We are running a competition in partnership with Health Rewards which closes on July 31. We have a first prize of an Apple Watch and two runner-up prizes of a Fitbit. So, Bounce Back players, get the camera out and send in your snaps.

Maureen McGonigle is the founder of Scottish Women in Sport