David Sach introduced himself to those present and explained the role of the regional development officer and outlined his objectives and those of the B.F.A. as regards regional development. The immediate needs of each club were discussed and he tried to come up with a proposal each club could fit together to apply for an Awards For All grant. There is no money within the regional development budget itself since this has been underfunded by Sport England this year.
Briefly, here are the problems/wish-lists at club level:
Welwyn-HatfieldThe direction of county/regional development is down to the clubs - it is not an imposed solution. It is up to the clubs to make their own applications, pitched between £3000 and £4500. It was also proposed that the county put together its own development plan to try to obtain larger sums of money.
The main structural problem within Herts was highlighted by all clubs, that is coaching:
It is probably the case that these problems will become more pressing in the next few years. If we could get some sort of proactive coach educator into the area - probably based at Rickmansworth Masonic School for Girls but serving the whole county things could be a lot brighter, but in the short term, there is no money for this to happen. Any proposals on this matter could go forward to a county development plan, which could request a larger grant from awards for all.
Meeting closed at 10:30pm
This is a first suggestive outline of what should be contained in the county development plan. From the information distributed at the development meeting, Awards For All will look favourably on a scheme which starts up something new which thereafter becomes self-funding. Comments and constructive criticism would appreciated.
Ask for a grant of £3000 to start up a rolling programme of coaching workshops, say once a month. I'm not sure what the cost from B.F.A. would be but David Austin estimated £100 for a B.A.F.coach-educator, £20 for hire of a church hall or such like.
This would be viable if (and only if) we could get a minimum of six would-be coaches plus their pupils to commit to turn up regularly and charge £20 per pair per month. This could be skewed towards the pupil who would be getting a lot of one-to-one coaching. After the first year this should then be self financing.
If each club could provide at least one trainee coach (or rotating between two or three if once a month is too great a commitment), the viability threshhold could be met. Probably best to give the trainee coaches an insentive such as reducing/waiving club fees. Also probably best to ask for money for the course up front.
The course should lead to a qualifiaction, which allows the coach to gain insurance for coaching without supervision thereafter.
It was felt that a once a month commitment was too great - this has been reduced to once a quarter. Given this reduction in sessions, the size of a grant application would be reduced, and unlikely to reach the required minimum threshhold (£500) To avoid dependency on a successful grant, funds will be obtained up front for each session.
A series of three coaching courses was run by Jes Smith at Hatfield during the 2002-2003 season. Following on from this, a monthly course in Milton Keynes has been advertised.
