Report to AGM 8-3-08: summary of activity 2007-8
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CCO report to YAA AGM 2008 (5.45MB, Word format)
Coach Training
Once again, it has been a very busy year - the demand for coach training continues. Level 1 is now an established programme, and we are looking forward to Level 2 in the autumn.
We have 15 new Level 1 coaches from courses that ended in 2007, including juniors Helena Beeson, Chris Smith, Mark Falkingham, Willow Jinks and Jonathan Hardy. More Level 1 candidates are in assessment to add to this, and two new courses have begun, one with 20 candidates at Wetherby and one with 12 candidates which is University specific, operating at Sheffield University. Andy Arnold was successful in passing his County Coach exam in Hampshire in January this year and is a very welcome addition to the coaching team - although he has really been working in that capacity for the past 18 months!
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Malcolm Burgin and Pam Hill of DVAC with their L1 certificates; both have now recently passed Coach. |
To add to that Martin Holtby passed his Senior Coach assessment to join myself, Stan and Tom as YAA Senior Coaches. We have six more County candidates, two from last year’s coach course, Michael Ward and Mary Hannan, and four from this year’s - Ian Foster, Grahame Cotterill, Louise Smith and Terry Ducker.
15 candidates passed the Coach level exam in January 08 to add to the numbers.
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| Candidates with course staff after they have all passed their exam! |
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Grace Drake presenting a bouquet from the candidates - which was an unexpected and lovely gesture. |
Coaching development
A record number of YAA coaches attended the annual coaching conference at Lilleshall this year - seen below at the conference dinner. Presentations included a seminar with Peter Suk on the junior squad coaching and an unforgettable sport psychology workshop with Massimo, the squad’s psychologist.
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Six YAA coaches will be attending the Development conference next weekend.
The first NCAS regional coaching conference will take place in Kendal this year on May 8th. This is a biennial event which will move around the counties, although it may become annual if there is the demand.
The first Regional training for level 2 staff took place in Wetherby for NCAS and EMAS last weekend delivered by Helen George and myself as NSG trainers; Harry Drake, Mick Fitzpatrick, Jean Clarkson, Tom Musgrove and Stan Snow attended for YAA, and are now accredited as Lead Tutors and Jean as Course Manager also. Further training for Level 1 tutor/assessor/mentor will take place during the next few months, and level 2 course staff training in the summer. No L2 courses can start until September 1st, which gives time for training prior to registering our first course.
We now have a YAA Coaching Committee, with myself as CCO with overall responsibility, Martin Holtby for L1, Harry Drake for L2, myself for L3, Jean Clarkson for Course management and administration, with Carl Morgan training as support, Mick Fitzpatrick for Leaders, Michael Ward for finance management and also University liaison, Andy Arnold and Mary Hannan as Schools Liaison and Grahame Cotterill as secretary. The volume of enquiries coming in and organisational work has expanded so much we feel that this should help to make a quicker response.
Squads
The three squads met again this winter, though attendance at two of them dropped off somewhat in the spring. In light of this we intend to try and commence squads a little earlier and complete the sessions by February next year. The standard at the squads was very high, and is beginning to be noticed by other areas; as a result we have been asked to advise Durham on setting up a similar system. The Youth Performance group is working very well, and several of them feature in the upper levels of the national rankings. Thanks to Nick Beeson for pulling together regional and county rankings and presenting this to the squads this winter.
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Squad members shooting at the intercounties... |
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| ...and having some fun after the more formal photos were done! |
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| Great team spirit from them, and a credit to the county. |
Finance
Michael will present more detail on finance, but the coaching account currently stands at just over £3,000 with all the income from the current courses in and most of the expenditure to come; there is also the refund from the coaching exam expenses to come in yet, which leaves us in a healthy situation thanks in no small part to the fund raising activities of the coaches, running the refreshments at the county outdoor shoots and carrying out two coaching clinics.
Coaching clinics.
We ran two coaching clinics this year for archers of all levels, each being a full weekend. The cost was £75 including lunch on both days, and a DVD after the event plus a package of resources. All archers left with a coaching plan, and evaluations showed they valued the experience and thought it good value for money.
The clinics seem to fill a gap in coaching provision, and although not an ideal solution do provide a very intensive experience of observation, video analysis, plus informative workshops on the anatomy of the shot, warm up, nutrition, developing mental skills, and planning a practice regime and training programme. If we can find a spare weekend we intend to repeat this during the winter.
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| Coaching taking place at the coaching clinic in January 08 | |
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| The nutrition workshop - very interactive! (below) |
All in all it has been a very busy, tiring but enjoyable year in coaching; it is gratifying to see the constant flow of people wanting to come into coaching, and also the expansion of the central coaching group, all of whom were volunteers.
Kath Fitzpatrick
YAA CCO
8-3-08