Getting new juniors involved
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Can be free for volunteers in England, but there are very tight rules - I know we have had to pay for several where unpaid people have come on school trips.
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chrisecurtis - red
- Posts: 171
- Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:34 pm
- Location: near Gatwick
Chasers are struggling a bit for juniors at the moment, which is daft. We are a very central club with frequent events, plenty of training and coaching all within 20 minutes of home.
In the winter we have weekly gym sessions for juniors which combine a bit of technique training with fun & games, followed by a free swim. This is based at a local high school. We get 20+ juniors on a regular basis, all of them are paid up club members, but not many have any intention to orienteer and tend to treat it as a bit of a youth club. As soon as summer comes and training moves onto the Chase, we get very few juniors turning up (only the committed club juniors with committed orienteering parents who bring them). It's the same juniors who turn up for YBT etc when there's a coach provided to take them to events.
Chasers put on the Staffordshire Schools Champs every year and get ~400 juniors turning up to compete (primary thru' to secondary school). As far as I know no-one has joined the club following their experience here (altho this is not the aim of the event).
We have good juniors to be an inspiration, good accurate coverage in the local press, committed seniors (who aren't too senior and uncool - I hope!) to encourage, a mentoring system for juniors within the club who travel to events, we are working towards clubmark accreditation, but we aren't attracting new juniors to the club!
I can see exactly where Chris is coming from from a school point of view, too. The University club I belonged to folded in the end - it wasn't an attractive sport for student newcommers, and the red tape and hoops you had to jump thru just to get to events was stupid (lists of people a month in advance, 2 people over 25 to drive, not a "competitive sport" !?! so rugby training a mile from the union got priority for minibus use over us going to the British champs....) and that was 10 years ago. It must be hell now!
I don't know what the answer is. It doesn't sound as though anyone else does, either. It's all a bit depressing
In the winter we have weekly gym sessions for juniors which combine a bit of technique training with fun & games, followed by a free swim. This is based at a local high school. We get 20+ juniors on a regular basis, all of them are paid up club members, but not many have any intention to orienteer and tend to treat it as a bit of a youth club. As soon as summer comes and training moves onto the Chase, we get very few juniors turning up (only the committed club juniors with committed orienteering parents who bring them). It's the same juniors who turn up for YBT etc when there's a coach provided to take them to events.
Chasers put on the Staffordshire Schools Champs every year and get ~400 juniors turning up to compete (primary thru' to secondary school). As far as I know no-one has joined the club following their experience here (altho this is not the aim of the event).
We have good juniors to be an inspiration, good accurate coverage in the local press, committed seniors (who aren't too senior and uncool - I hope!) to encourage, a mentoring system for juniors within the club who travel to events, we are working towards clubmark accreditation, but we aren't attracting new juniors to the club!
I can see exactly where Chris is coming from from a school point of view, too. The University club I belonged to folded in the end - it wasn't an attractive sport for student newcommers, and the red tape and hoops you had to jump thru just to get to events was stupid (lists of people a month in advance, 2 people over 25 to drive, not a "competitive sport" !?! so rugby training a mile from the union got priority for minibus use over us going to the British champs....) and that was 10 years ago. It must be hell now!
I don't know what the answer is. It doesn't sound as though anyone else does, either. It's all a bit depressing
Make the most of life - you're a long time dead.
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Stodgetta - brown
- Posts: 569
- Joined: Fri May 07, 2004 2:55 pm
- Location: north of brum, south of manchester
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