Chapeltown & District Amateur Swimming Club

Affiliated to ASA, NECSSA, YSA, S&D ASA, RLSS

Reply to: Mr Kevin Canetti (Publicity Officer), 4 Fulmar Way, Thorpe Hesley, Rotherham, S61 2PE. Tel: 07973 548534 Email: Kevin.canetti@wharncliffe.co.uk

Workshop by Sheffield City Council on Club for All, Developing Sporting Partnerships, and Junior Clubs

Chris Fearn & Kevin Canetti - 19^th September 2006

Following an invitation from Sheffield City Council’s Activity Sheffield department, Chris Fearn and Kevin Canetti attended the above Workshop at the Quaker Meeting house in Sheffield on the evening of the 19^th September.

The workshop, presented by Julie Eborall (above left) and Alison Steel (above right) (interestingly an ex-Chapeltown swimmer from c. 30 years ago) was attended by 4 other clubs/organisations, ranging from Tie Kwando, to Tennis, and was split into three separate areas, each with its own Powerpoint slide presentation (copies passed to Club Secretary and available on request), followed by a practical task on the subject.

Equity

The main objectives were to understand:

· Sports equity issues

· How a sport club can cater for different people

· Have a list of useful contacts

The core message was to ask clubs to examine the current make up of their membership and identify any areas where, be it through gender, race, disability etc, the membership was not representative of the community, and also to consider if any of the areas where membership was low, say in ethnic minorities, that the club could see this as an opportunity to increase membership. The requirement for any funding application to see a balanced and open club membership was also mentioned.

A copy of the percentage breakdown for the different groups across the UK was provided and is attached to this report.

Developing Sporting Partnerships

This section covered how different partnerships could be established with various local communities and organisations, and the benefits these could offer. The presentation highlighted a number of organisations that traditionally clubs may not immediately associates as partners, along with other more traditional ones like schools, and gave examples of how relationships could work, i.e. using the facilities of local clinics/doctors outside busy times.

Ideas on increasing the profile of the club with local and regional organisations, as well as options to expand the capabilities of the club, such as through coaching screens, to widen the clubs’ appeal.

Details of the local sports contacts, including School Sport’s Co-ordinators contracted or employed by the council to enhance sports awareness and activities in schools, were provided. We were also given a useful diagram of the local school infrastructure.

Developing Junior Support

The objectives of this final section were to understand how to:

· Plan for success

· Motivate juniors

· Provide juniors

· Comply with health and safety guidelines

· Plan for the future

Large parts of this section weren’t very relevant as it was aimed at clubs which don’t have a junior section. It covered how to plan for juniors, what motivates & what deters juniors, and the practical requirements for a junior section.

Suggested actions to be considered by the Committee

During the meeting we came up with several ideas which the Committee may want to take forward and we suggest these are discussed as part of AOB at the next meeting:

1. Add a modified version of the Equity Statement provided at the Workshop to both the handbook and the club web site.

2. Increase awareness on the Web site and promotional material such as the Olympic posters of the free trial period to encourage new membership.

3. Invite schools, via head teachers, to a training session dedicated to their school and with a small number of club members to reflect skills they can gain etc.

4. Broaden the emails on the web site updates, newsletters and press releases to cover contacts outside the club such as schools, the sports co-ordinators, and the Activity Sheffield contacts we’ve picked up – raising regular and ongoing awareness of the club.

5. Investigate options for support to develop coaching skills amongst club members; the presenters mentioned that there are scheme’s to support and possibly finance coaching awards, and we may want to investigate this to provide a channel for future coaches and also an incentive to older swimmers to stay at the club (coaching support could only be made available to members who have, for example, been at the club for more than 3 years).

6. Make contact with the Eccelsfield area School Sports co-ordinator (Charlotte Evans – ecclesfield@thearches.org.uk) to see how she can raise awareness of the club within schools and assist with increasing membership. Also find out if there is a way to get promotional material to parents through the schools as mailers or inserts with school publications etc.

7. Assign a Committee member to each local school with the remit to raise awareness of the club at that school and possibly carry out an annual visit to see how the school and club can work together. This may be partially achieved through point 6 but a dedicated person per school may give us better focus than a co-ordinator who is looking after multiple schools and liaising with multiple clubs. There may also be the option to Parent Support Groups at the schools.

8. Get in touch with the South Yorkshire County Sports Co-ordinator (Tara Smith: 0114 2235683) to see how they can assist.

9. Create a club development plan which sets out our overall aims and objectives around which meeting decisions can be considered, i.e. that they fall in line with our plan. The plan will also assist in working with Sports Co-ordinators, schools and other organisations. It needs to contain key tasks and an action plan and should be reviewed at each AGM.

10. We should consider applying a maximum number of swimmers in the teaching squad; using a waiting list to manage any surplus applicants. This was debated recently and needs to be concluded; as we attract more swimmers we are in danger of increasing teaching to a point where we can’t cope with swimmers who want to join in the other squads.

11. Liaise with School Sports Co-ordinators to arrange a school gala where local schools enter a team. Something similar had been done by another club for bowling and appears to have worked very well. We could use relay only races and assign a club member to each school (perhaps an interhouse squads per school) to provide the link to the club and involve the club and school swimmers as a team. Could be combined with point 3 above to give a form of training session for each school leading up to the gala.

12. We could introduce the Swim-fit award system into the club; this is a badge/certificate system supplied by ASA Awards for accumulated miles swam. Awards are granted for 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 (thru to 100), 150, 200, 250 thru to 500, and so on up to 5000 miles, and could be used as an incentive/recognition system for swimmers in training. Each swimmer would hold a Swim-fit card and have it signed by the coach at the end of each training session, once the relevant miles are reached the badge and certificate (signed by Bob) can be issued (paid for by parents at perhaps a small profit) – this will also create useful publicity for the club through the press, web site and newsletter.

See also http://www.asaawards.co.uk/vsite/vproduct/page/productlist/0,7631,5061-153354-170570-32557-product-list,00.html

13. Confirm the details of the First Aid persons) in the Club Handbook.

14. Investigate gaining the Clubmark award system – an initiative from Sports UK to provide recognition to organised and well run clubs, helping parents choose the better clubs.