Equity in your sport/coaching

[Godders]

Sadly all this PC drivel puts me off coaching.

I'm quite prepared to put something back into the sport would like it to be teaching people to orienteer not spending 40 hours filling in forms and discussing ethics.

Unfortunately vast amounts of money seem to be being spent on a new breed of professional sports administrators / coaches who then create lots of paperwork to justify their existence, making it harder for volunteers.

Doubtless I shouldn't be organising a training session tonight because I'm not qualified and it will be dark which must be risky

[Kitch]

luckily I told people to be careful on the corners on Tuesday

so Mhairi won't be able to sue me

[mharky]

should sue the council though

[J.Tullster]

Aye, the country's gone to the dogs.
You could go on about this sort of crap for ages.
Stupid stuff like I've got relatives that were building a house, but had trouble getting a planning certificate because their patio was 10cm to short or some pish like that. And worse than that, they had a fence with vertical strutts, not diagonal ones A child could have got it's head stuck in that!
Ah tell ye.....
Grumble grumble......

[rocky]

someones gonna say it, so it may as well be me....

"they should have thought about that when they were building the Ironbridge!"

can't actually find the photo right now, but its a classic.....

[awk]

It's very easy to rant on about political correctness, but the instances of racism, sexism, etc. in sport are rather too many to ignore. Clubmark is a generic scheme intended to help people identify sports (not just orienteering) clubs that employ good practice, and to be a vehicle for clubs to advertise that they do. A club isn't under any obligation to do it, but if you want recognition from a local authority, then the hoops may well need jumping through. If you're not bothered, then there's no need. I would have thought it fairly obvious that being able to demonstrate a commitment to equity would be part of any such award.

As for coaching being PC mad. Yes, it does now require more work to qualify than it used to, and yes the system is sometimes too long winded, but better that than people practising as coaches with inadequate training and knowledge, particularly in the sorts of environments that orienteering works in. And no, you don't have to spend hours discussing ethics either!

[Mrs H.]

I'm afraid that despite what Awk says in defence of the matter it still intensely annoys me that there will be a general assumption (fostered by the powers that be) that with out the necessary certificate you are not operating an equitable, well run club - and conversely - a very mediocrely run club - which has attended the required courses and ticked the right boxes - might be a better club than one that chooses not to.

I've come across this very attitude before as a school governor when we were criticised at an ofsted inspection - not because the school was badly run - on the contrary it was rated as one of the best in the country - but because we didn't spend a large proportion of each meeting explaining why we had come to make certain decisions to make it so - Common Sense needs no certificates, no explanations - just acting upon

[Gillian]

And no, you don't have to spend hours discussing ethics either!

I only spent 8 hours discussing ethics as part of the Level 2 Coaching certificate - 3 at the course, and 5 doing the coursework afterwards (and I really mean these hours were spent discussing ethics - all the rest of the certificate took even more hours.) As it was this month, I can remember the numbers very well.

[Kitch]

here here Mrs H

[harry]

yeah i agree with mrs H. (shock)
but it's maybe not for the good clubs or well run schools that these systems are in place, it's maybe for the poorly run schools and clubs with no real ideas of how to change things, attract more diverse people etc because in the process of going through clubmark they will gain something, not just a certificate. the good clubs probably don't need this help or a certifcate to prove they are good. it's to help clubs! if clubs don't need the help and are happy with where they are then that's all good.

[Stodgetta]

The course I went on has to be attended by one coach from the club to tick the relevant Clubmark box. There are many other coaches in the club who haven't, and will not, go on the course.

The fact that 3 club members have been thru' 3 hours of Equity training as part of Clubmark accreditation doesn't mean that everyone in the club will now be "equitable", either.

[Neil M35]

I don’t think there is any problem with the issues these courses are supposed to be addressing – we do want orienteering to be an inclusive sport and it is not as inclusive as it could be. (I don’t know about ethnic/gender issues but skinhead bikers tend to be made to feel a bit unwelcome, which resulted in my brother more or less giving up the sport for 10 years until he got a car). It is just that sending one person on a course is a box ticking exercise for the club and does nothing to address the attitudes of the club’s members.

Clubmark is a generic scheme intended to help people identify sports (not just orienteering) clubs that employ good practice

It just identifies clubs that are organised enough to send somebody on a course.

[Toni]

I think Kitch has been reading too much Dilbert!

[Neil M35]

I think Kitch has been reading too much Dilbert!

I bet he wears a Dilbert tie at work - just to show what a rebel he is

[Klebe]

The fact that 3 club members have been thru' 3 hours of Equity training as part of Clubmark accreditation doesn't mean that everyone in the club will now be "equitable", either.

The fact that we proudly display our 'Investors in People' trophy on the wall in reception at work doesn't mean that we treat our staff any differently! It just means we say we do and have got some processes in place to demonstrate it. The fact we rarely follow those processes, do not undertake anything other than a few token performance appraisals for a limited number of staff seems to be wholly immaterial.
Its people that matter, not the form filling. The better managers who run the most efficient, dedicated departments tend to be those who communicate with and listen to their staff. For these people the ritual performance appraisal round is totally superfluous.
The question should be 'What did you/your club actively do to encourage minorities to take part', not, 'did you send someone on a threee hour talk on equity'.