Recruitment

The availability of the new track at St Peter's must be near - it was after 13th September, then the last thing was after the October week. This offers great opportunities for recruitment and forming an association with the school. We have a school whose principal teacher of PE has a good track record in sending athletes to the Club - Mr McMurray has sent us athletes like Natalie Quinn, Sean and Sinead Griffin, Ryan Kenny, Hayley, Natalie and all of that crew and so on. There is the track on the premises - what a combination! We have lost many young athletes because the response to the query, 'Where do we come to?' has been something like 'Come to Scotstoun and ask for Clydesdale Harriers' or 'Come to Colquhoun Park and wait near the Pavilion'. We were asking them to go somewhere they were not familiar with to look for people they did not know.
If their PE teacher says that they should come to the school on a Wednesday night and ask for Mr Halpin, Mr Dolan, Mr Hanratty or whoever, nothing could be simpler for the pupils. A couple of posters given to the school to display, a visit in advance from a coach or senior committee member and we are in business.
There are many benefits for training as well but I'll do a separate post for that. An easily accessible venue, a school on the premises that can direct children to us and the club's younger age groups could really benefit from an influx of numbers and talent.
If as the Committee promised a few years ago, the Seniors would come down from the Antonine it would have the whole Club at one venue again with all the benefits that that can bring and were the night a Thursday - the night the joggers run from the school - then there are possibilities of recruitment there as well: one thing's for sure, the Antonine has not been a great source of recruitment over the years! Anyway, it's up to us to maximise the facilities when it comes on stream!