Imogen Stewart
RGU - Grampian Leaders
Last year I was one of twenty four young adults who participated
in a scheme called Grampian Leaders. We represented many schools
and sports clubs from all over the Aberdeenshire area. The
programme involved us attending training days once a month – these
days allowed us to gain extra sporting qualifications – and to give
up some of our time to coach a sports club in our preferred sport.
In my case I coached a secondary school boys and a primary school
girl’s football team.
As part of the scheme we attended the Lead 2014 conference at
Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon’s University in April of 2011. The day was
broken into three lessons and was aimed at improving our awareness
of the requirements needed to plan and host a sporting event. Not
only did we learn some vital information, the student tutors
provided additional knowledge and techniques that we could apply to
our coaching sessions.
This conference wasn’t your average sit-down, listen up and take
notes scenario, the day was a mix of theory and practical,
practical being demonstrations and small ice breakers to gel the
team and keep us sleepy, half dead teenagers alive and happening.
We learnt about the initial procedures required to make a sporting
event a success, things like: the venue, authority permission,
parking, facilities and the layout. We hadn’t thought these items
needed as much discussion as later revealed. One key rule I took
away from this first lesson was: “You could discuss the initial
planning procedures until the cows come home, but an events success
is only going to reflect the dedication put in by the organising
team”. The second lesson of the day was full of SMILES; Safety,
Maximum participation, Inclusion by everyone, Learning, Enjoyment
and Success. All these key elements should be taken into
consideration during each coaching session. If you apply these
elements to a coaching session it is guaranteed that the children
participating will; excel in the sport, play to the best of their
ability and form new friendships. I also learnt from this lesson
that how you communicate with children of different ages and
abilities is vital for success, the way you come across as a coach
towards a secondary boys football team is completely different to
that of a primary school girls team. By being able to adapt to each
team allows the children to understand better and be more willing
to play. As the Grampian Leaders group we left the conference
knowing we had to organise a sporting event, which turned out to be
a raft building exercise during the Port Soy Boat Festival in July.
The aim was for two teams of kids to go head to head building a
raft, from the provided materials, to float a wooden keg across the
loch without it getting wet and the first team to burst the balloon
with the keg won. As the children weren’t permitted on the raft for
healthy and safety reasons, we provided life-jackets and rowing
boats for them to transfer themselves across the loch meaning they
had to problem solve a way of getting the raft from one side to the
other. As the organisers we felt it was important to trial the
event, so going head to head with a willing local bunch of kids the
game was on! But to our embarrassment the children beat us, they
built a perfect floating raft from the barrels, poles and rope
which the same can’t be said for us. Then they managed to pull the
raft and keg from one side of the loch to the other by tying all
the sections of rope together, they were a brainy bunch!
Apart from our shocking defeat the event was a great success,
with many teams signing up for the challenge. I don’t think we
would have ran the event as efficiently as we did without the
knowledge and help we acquired at the Lead 2014 Conference.
I have taken these lessons away from the conference and also
applied them to my coaching plans, in doing so I believe it helped
me become a better coach and in turn lead my Primary School girl’s
team to a season completely unbeaten. The satisfaction I gained
when I saw their faces glow, as they raised trophy after trophy
above their heads, was immense. Not only have they excelled as a
team but as individuals and I am honoured to have coached them for
three years and watched them go from strength to strength.