Read the minutes of the Coaches Meeting here
Present: Frank Burton, Richard Carter, Bob Willows, Helen Fitzgerald, Janice Farrar, Pete Witcomb, John Clements, Trevor Simcox, Mike Ellis-Martin
Meeting started at 6.15
John pointed out there should be no more than 10 minutes on any of the subjects.
- Apologies for absence ( John Docherty, Jennie Neal, Josh Freed, Karen Noakes, Lucy Howell, Dan Booker, Allison Benton, Adam Lewis, Uwe Dornbusch)
- Minutes of the last meeting – accuracy – no amendments
- Minutes of the last meeting- matters arising
- JC and JN have come up with a structure which JC will circulate
- JC has e-mailed Elspeth for details of courses for HF and the other assistant coaches
- AP Assistant coaches to talk to John if they want to do children’s coach course.
- We then discussed the mentoring scheme.
AP all any mentors or mentees please contact MEM with their details. Richard said he is happy to Mentor.
- Website – specifically ‘coaches section’ –what can we add? It was suggested that coaches’ pictures go on there. We want to get photos and blurb about coaches into the appropriate section. FB said if you put coaches and lots of information, people might try to ring individual coaches and bypass the Friday night. As long as coaches personal contact details are not there it should be ok.
AP MEM check whether there is a possibility of individuals having a e-mail address at the B&H website. - Track use and safety in icy conditions (Dan has said he will be doing a risk assessment soon.) TS said that Freedom Leisure have copies of Health and safety policies. PW said that generally the cones system works quite well now younger athletes are running inside, although it was pointed out that this advice was different from previously when younger athletes were using the outside lanes.
JC passed round a sheet for people to put on their track usage to help in the h&S assessment.
AP all – let MEM have the completed track usage sheets
Janice suggested a colour coding idea for track usage.
365 coaches run through guidelines at the beginning of sessions. Event group coaches should tell their athletes also to be aware of the younger athletes.
Alex pointed out that we don’t know about first aid etc. –BW said that first aid kit is in kitchen.
AP JC to e-mail copy of the track usage form to MEM to distribute to coaches not at the meeting.
MEM pointed out that the club was going to work towards clubmark which will include rigorous health and safety policies. - Invite team managers and taking the club to the next level.
PW said that there is not much chance of picking athletes from the current crop of tues/thurs athletes. He wanted to know what Friday athletes were capable of coming through.
FB said that we don’t do enough event specific work to develop athletes for a team.
RC said he wants a database of people which could help.
JC said that Rob Ingham may be getting more involved with coaching and may take on some of the athletes.
JF said that she thought we could do some mini competitions.
FB reminded us that we have to consider space issues.
JC asked for someone to champion this but no-one was able to commit. We are looking for a volunteer to do this still. - Hurdles
TS pointed out that we only have 20 hurdles to train with and we are heading into competition preparation, he would like to ask that the hurdles group has access to all of these from 7 to 8 on Tuesday and Thursday. He needs large numbers of hurdles. Also we could buy some training hurdles. Freedom leisure have said that if we can find a way of locking them up we can store them near the track.
We suggest buying 20 hurdles at around £60 each, this will be raised at the next finance committee meeting.
FB asked how we account for items that get ‘lost’. BW does an inventory each year. One problem with buying more equipment is storage.
AP JC will e-mail Judith to check how we go about ordering. TS is happy to ‘receive’ the order. - Injured athletes
TS said that the club used to offer to help injured athletes with their recovery. Could we discuss if this is still in place and if so what the process is. There used to be money available for athletes to help in treatment and recovery processes.
FB said that we should be careful if an athlete is injured at work and is claiming help for financial treatment.
Coaches felt that back problems would be likely to be worsened by jumps.
AP MEM to e-mail finance committee to ask if there is money available to help and what restrictions should be applied if any on the allocation of funds.
FB said that we should be careful of having ‘cards’ from physios etc offering treatments in case people thought the club were ‘endorsing’ them. - A review of the Friday 365 sessions.
TS gave all the coaches a brief outline of where we have come from and how the original ethos of this group has evolved since the Olympics. The original scheme was a pilot of UK athletics 365, originally designed to trial and give closer attention to small groups of athletes. Financially, to make it viable, Freedom Leisure allowed the track to be used free of charge for small numbers. Some remuneration was given to coaches and assistants on Fridays because the coaching was different from the norm. After the Olympics numbers have increased greatly and it is now very different type of session. It has become a ‘feeder’ for tues/thurs, and now perceived as a ‘dumping ground’ for new athletes. Thus the ethos has changed from the original plan. How do we want to take it forward from here in terms of costing of running this group and use of the funds as well as looking at cost of hiring the track, also about other coaches using the arena during these sessions.
Basically, what is the purpose of these sessions now?
We suggested carrying on as it currently is, but that we voluntarily talk to Freedom Leisure about paying for the track as a good faith gesture rather than carry on hoping they are not noticing that the sessions are different than originally agreed. We also discussed the possibility that other coaches could use the track provided 365 retains absolute priority, so that other sessions must not get in the way of 365.
BW suggested we still call it the ‘365’ group, so U14’s come on a Friday.
In a separate issue BW reminded the group that people under 9 cannot be club members he had noticed a number of application forms for athletes under this age. - England athletics U11’s membership
At the last committee meeting we decided we were not joining under 11’s, and most of the debate had already happened - Over 17 athletes (response to Dan’s request to consider older athletes as well)
This item was deferred as Dan was not able to get to the meeting. There was agreement however, that we must not lose sight of the needs of the older athletes.
BW said that ‘the younger athletes are our future, but the older athletes are our present.’ - Kickstart 22ND TO 24TH March (for older athletes over 16, £60 per athlete, £50 per coach)
RC said 10 rooms had been booked, he is providing lunch on Saturday and snacks in rooms, providing petrol money for people driving.
Volunteers at half marathon and 10k earned money for the club and they will have reduced cost.
TS apologised that he was elsewhere with some of his group, but as RC pointed out there will always be other things happening whatever weekend you choose. - MEM asked if everyone is on ‘withdean Coaches’ facebook page?
AP all, please join! https://www.facebook.com/groups/224294434310025/ - Use of the ‘plateau’ 365.
Jennie Neal asked that the plateau be used on a Thursday for her group for the next 8 weeks as her athletes reach peak need for the training area, the 365 group could use it on Tuesday.
This was broadly agreed although if there were other small groups of event group athletes they could approach Jenny to see if they could use the pits. - Contingency for summer track closure.
BW might take his group to Lewes.
PW asked if we could use Lewes on a Wednesday. We need to book early to get there.
Worthing is another possibility.
AP BW to ask Lewes about use of track for the summer.
TS possibly will use Horsham.
FB suggested we set a deadline for these arrangements and the meeting agreed that by the next meeting we will have a contingency plan.
AP all to work towards contingency for their group over the summer track closure.
FB said that last time the track had been closed, we suspended U11 athletics. MEM wondered if we could this time just have running for the U11’s while the track is closed, this could easily be accommodated in a park or school.
AP PW to ask Patcham High School if we can use their fields on a tues and thurs evening
RC suggested Manor Road gym which is large and has good facilities. This could be useful for the summer but potentially also for winter sportshall training. - Sportshall club competitions winter 2013-14
MEM talked about increasing the emphasis on this for next year and to develop athletes better to take part in it. - AOB
PW asked about Roedean coming to the track, MEM said that he had not heard from the teacher there. If she did contact, MEM would refer her to the event group coaches for over 14’s. U14’s will be treated as all other athletes
RC hoping to do quadkids competitions, Thursdays 4-5.30
JC on tues/thurs 365 sessions – are athletes going to be referred to Friday if they haven’t been for more than four weeks? MEM said that he is hoping to do this but he needs to have contact details for all the athletes who haven’t been turning up to tell them they need to come on a Friday. He has e-mailed the membership secretary but not yet had a response. - Date of next meeting Monday 6th May
- The meeting closed at 8.04pm