County
Development Officers Report 2004/05
Elaine Spray reported another very successful year for Badminton Development within the County.
The Nottinghamshire County Council has provided excellent support for most of the county activities and they now place badminton within their top five supported sports.
The Youth Games and Inter School leagues are running successfully, and the start of the new ‘School Partnerships’ are involving themselves in delivering badminton sessions into their schools making badminton very popular with juniors.
Senior Development
The
NBA identified a need for the provision of social badminton. This season energy
has been spent in forming new Community clubs within Nottinghamshire so that
new and old players could play badminton at a non-competitive standard.
Five Community Clubs have been set up and are now available for casual play at the following locations:
Elliott Durham School Mapperley, Hucknall National School, Manor Leisure at Mansfield Woodhouse, Bluecoat School Aspley and Chilwell Olympia.
Nottinghamshire Youth Games (NYG) / Inter School Leagues
For
the first time badminton was invited to take part in the Nottinghamshire Youth
Games. This took place in July, at Mansfield Leisure Centre, and it was a tremendous
success.
Eight of the counties Local Authorities entered a team with each team comprising 10 non-county players, 5 boys & 5 girls. Trials were held in each area for which some 160 youngsters took part.
Bassetlaw were the winners closely followed by Newark & Sherwood and with Gedling in 3rd place. Feedback from the Nottinghamshire County Council was that badminton was one of the best presented overall sports. Thank you to all the junior club helpers who made the event such a success.
Twenty-one schools from around the county entered the first NBA School Leagues. The county was divided into four areas - Mansfield, Gedling, Bassetlaw, and Nottingham City. A total of 180 players entered.
Multi Skilled Coaches
In conjunction with the
Nottinghamshire County council the Regional Governing bodies of badminton, table
tennis & squash joined together to make a financial to bid for two new Multi
Skilled Coaches to deliver the basic FUNdamentals of racket sports throughout
Nottinghamshire. The bid has been successful and the two coaches will start
in June 2005 on a 3-year contract. They will be delivering racket sports in
the North & South of the County and will work mainly in Primary schools.
Awards For All / Funding
Throughout the year
Nottinghamshire Badminton has applied for and successfully received a total
of £14,672 in grants and sponsorship. These grants have been awarded through
Awards for All, Nottinghamshire Community Funding and the Nottinghamshire County
Council.
The monies will be used for the formation of two new Junior Badminton Clubs in the Radford area of Nottingham and for the promotion of Eastwood Phoenixwood Junior Badminton Club.
Nottinghamshire County Council are generously supporting Coach Education for the 2005 Nottinghamshire Youth Games.
Disability Coaching
Thanks are extended to Graham
Atkin who attended a one week Coaching Disabled Athletes Course for badminton
and has since worked in Shepherd Special School with severely disabled students.
The Yorkshire bank supported this project and donated £350 for Specialist
Equipment for the school.
For the first time ever Nottinghamshire & Leicestershire have joined together to organise a “Wheelchair Badminton Day” The event will be run at Loughborough and all disabled and wheelchair users will be invited to take part in this event. The Nottinghamshire County Council Disability Unit have offered to lend specialist wheelchairs for this event
Coach Education
In January 2005 Badminton England
introduced coach education in a new format. The original Leaders award has been
replaced with a Level 1 Assistant Coach award and the original Coach Part 1
award has been replaced with a Level 2 Coach award.
This means that any player with the Leaders qualification who wants to progress will have to take the new Level 1 award and any player with the Coach Part 1 qualification who wants to progress will have to take a two day Assimilation course to bring them up to a Level 2 standard.
During the season two Leaders award courses and two Level 1 courses were held with a total of 48 candidates qualifying. A Coach Part 1 course was also held with 12 candidates qualifying.
In March a successful Development Seminar was held with 30 Coaches and Leaders attending.
More and more players are becoming interested in taking a coaching qualification so if that applies to you please contact me direct. Similarly if your club would like some coaching tuition please contact me. Grants to help with the cost of coaching qualifications and club coaching are being made available through the Nottinghamshire Badminton Association and me.
Clubmark
Nottinghamshire are one of the most
up to date Counties for Badminton Clubmark Silver in the Country.
Three clubs have achieved Clubmark Silver to date: Mansfield JBC, Chilwell Olympia JBC and Phoenixwood BC. These clubs were presented with their Accreditation at the “All England” finals in March.
Thirteen clubs in Nottinghamshire have so far registered for Clubmark and five of these are working to completion. It is important that all clubs are eventually registered Clubmark Silver as this is the way forward for every Sports Club. Eventually Local Authorities & Leisure Centres will only recognise clubs with Clubmark Silver accreditation.
Sports Colleges / School Partnerships
In Nottinghamshire
eight new Sports Colleges and Partnerships are being formed, one within each
Local Authority in the County. These specialist Schools will ensure all the
Primary Schools in their Partnership will receive some form of sport education.
Badminton is at present working with Manor Sports College, Mansfield Woodhouse,
and the Farnborough Partnership in Nottingham South.
Each Partnership will have seven senior schools and around 48 Primary schools. Taster days for 10 year olds from each school are being run on a regular basis ensuring all these primary schools are enjoying fun badminton. The objective is that when they move into the senior school in September they will be playing badminton during curricular time. So far this season a total of 900 Primary School children have taken part.
New Sports facilities are springing up over the County and Fernwood School Wollaton, Farnborough School Clifton, Henry Mellish School Bulwell, Ellis Guilford School, Elliott Durham School Mapperley, and Djanogly School Gregory Boulevard all have new four court Sports Halls, most of these will be available for hire from September 2005
Junior Development
In general junior badminton
is increasing especially as more senior schools are playing the sport. Six new
after school clubs and two new clubs will be joining in September making a total
15 Junior Badminton Clubs Affiliated to Badminton England
Conclusion
This year has been very successful
for badminton in Nottinghamshire with Badminton entering the five top sports
supported by the Nottinghamshire County Council.
Although there is a slight drop in senior membership, junior membership in the clubs has increased dramatically, and with the new Partnerships my aim is to have every senior school playing badminton.
New social clubs are forming in the county so please refer non-league players to the website for details.
Senior Clubs must consider a junior section to their club to allow new young players to support their club for the oncoming years; it is essential that young people are welcomed into your clubs for your future.
Special thanks go to Patsy Watson, Sandra Morgan, Phil Wiltshire and Fraser Rackham for all their hard work in the County delivering badminton into the schools.
Elaine Spray - Badminton Development Officer