Juniors Report for AGM 7 December 2011 The ... - Susan Devoy

Juniors Report
for AGM 7 th December 2011
The juniors programme has been very popular this year. We have been running
all year, every Monday 3.30pm – 5pm.
We started term one in February by sending out flyers to all the local schools,
inviting kids to come along and have a go at squash. From those flyers we had
about 30 kids start the year. Since then the numbers have been growing every
term. We now have close to 50 kids interested in playing squash. Non-members
are charged $5 a week or $50 a term. The money I collected funded all our
activities.
Each term has been run a little bit differently depending on the number of
coach’s availiable.
Term one- we had 30 kids ages 8 -14 we had two sessions 3.30pm – 4.10pm
then 4.10pm-5pm. We had the use of 5 courts so we were able to have about 5-7
kids on the court with a coach at one time. We finished the term with a couple
of nights of fun 10min games. Kids playing around 3games each week lots of
fun.
Term two – We followed the same format with two sessions. The last two
weeks of term we had a fun tournament with prizes. The kids were encouraged
to learn to mark and ref the other games.
Term three – This term we started working from the skills sheets to get the
kids to concentrate on skills and technique. We also put the kids into leagues
and gave them time to play league games. The winner of each league won a t-
shirt. At the end of that term we had prize giving Susan presented certificates,
for the highest level of skill the kids obtained. Everyone got a bar of chocolate
and the league winners got their T-shirts. This term I noticed the high school
boys stopped coming, there just wasn’t enough interest to keep them coming.
But now that Tauranga Boys College has a programme running on Tuesdays
and Thursdays I hope those boys will be able to join in there and come back to
squash.
Term four- In the new club. Everyone is excited to be in the new building.
More kids have come along to play squash. New members join the club all the
time more girls too!! (a bonus) We have four courts now, and up to 50 kids

interested. So that put more pressure on the time we have. All the kids have
been roughly put into the same skill levels on each court. They all arrive
together. We have Michael, Joe and Ashleigh along with Char and myself,
braced to keep them all engaged for the session. At the end of each night we are
able to give out “Player of the Day” awards to kids who have tried there best.
These awards come from The Lone Star Cafe in town, and are very kindly
donated by Trevor Donaghy. Unfortunately, There is no time or space to play
league games. The kids have been put into leagues and I have encouraged them
to come down and play games with each other on another night. We have given
out names and numbers to them all.
On Monday December 19 th We have a junior tournament organised. School
will be finished so we will run the tournament all day. It will give the kids a
chance to learn about tournaments, and enter the grading list.
In November we had 8 coaches attend the Small Nix coaching course with
Robbie, to help with the coaching going forward into next year. We have also
applied to Sport BOP for some Kick Start funds. We got $1000.00 from them
to buy new racquets and other equipment to help us coach these kids.
As the club grows the numbers of juniors will just keep growing too. Char and I
are in the process of writing a proposed 12month programme for the juniors
next year. We will be applying for more funding, mainly for coaching. We will
be getting quotes from a few coaches to present to anyone who will give us
money.!!
Looking forward to next year we would like to have the kids split up into
smaller groups to make it possible to have better coach:kids ratios. We would
like to propose Primary school juniors on Monday nights Intermediate Juniors
on Wednesday nights and High school girls on Sunday afternoons.
This will compliment the programme that The Boys College has running on
Tuesdays and Thursdays after school.
This will mean that there is a juniors programme running every night after
school. This will put pressure on the courts for other club members. But as Karl
would say, “this is a good problem to have”
Ideas for next year -

Some ideas I have had to help relieve this problem. If we could get 5 kids into a
group with there own coach. They could arrange coaching times that suit them
before school and weekends. This would mean a bigger commitment from our
club members to help these juniors improve. If there is anyone who would like
to take on 5 eager young squashies, please come and talk to me.(Lisa) I
welcome all help.
We would like to have interclub nights for the kids. Inviting J grade members
from Te Puke, Mount and Katikati clubs. Again the competition for court time
will be a challenge with business house being popular and the adults interclub
as well. But I really think this should to be considered, if we are to keep the
young players keen and moving up the grades.
Lastly, I would like to thank all the people who have helped me with juniors this
year. I took on the juniors at the beginning of the year with no idea of how it
works. ( I didn’t come to squash as a kid so I missed all the fun)
We have tried to keep it fun and interesting, with little incentives to keep
coming back for more. The kids have kept coming back so thank you to
everyone who has helped make it a successful year.
Robbie Wyatt, Michael Dunston, Ray Van Beek, Don McNeely, Ross
McCurran, Alex Revington, Linda Neill, Donminic Culpitt, Joe Lyons,
Ashleigh Dunston, Diana Moore, Susan Devoy, Jamie and Josh Oakley and
Char Niles