Growing our Junior Club Membership Our Journey from
Growing our Junior Club Membership
Our Journey – from 2 schools to 10 • In December 2012 we met with RM to discuss how we could access primary schools. • RM introduced us to SGO • SGO contacted schools and we ran a Level 2 School Games event for the first time in March 2013 • 2 schools attended – we coached them and umpired some matches • As a follow up we ran 6 Saturday morning session in early summer 2013 – we had 35 attendees • 25 new Junior players joined the club in September 2013 • In March 2014 we ran our second Level 2 school games event – 10 schools attended • We will be running Saturday morning sessions this summer • For the first time ever we were able to enter teams into the Avon U 10 and U 12 Leagues
How Did We Find Coaches? • Members of our Youth Development Team volunteered to attend the Level 2 Games event • Our club coach volunteered to run our follow up Saturday morning programme • Having coaches who were friendly and empathetic to the needs of young people was crucial
How Did We Find Schools? • The SGO contacted all schools on our behalf • Information regarding the games were hosted on the CSP website • The success of our Year 1 efforts meant that more schools wanted to be involved in Year 2
What Delivery Did We Do? • On the day of the tournament all schools received a 45 minute coaching session. • We umpired all of the matches • We ran free follow up sessions for 6 consecutive Saturdays in early summer. • We ensured we integrated our ‘new’ players into the regular club sessions in September.
How Did We Make It Sustainable? • We are fortunate to get all pitch time for juniors free of charge. • We paid our lead coach £ 35 per session for our 6 week programme. • We now see this as part of our offer and our main way of recruiting players into our Juniors. • The costs have been met through club funds – having 25 new members paying subs from September has more than covered the costs.
Our Key Success Factors • Partnership between our club the SGO and England Hockey • Keen team of volunteers who understand the importance for the club to have tangible links with local schools • Free follow up club sessions – vital to making the link sustainable and recruiting players
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