Recruitment

Having had a word about recruiting seniors for track and field as well as for road and cross-country, it's appropriate to look at recruiting young athletes. This is of course bound up with the coaching, competition structure and support that we can offer but it is easier dealt with if we separate them out. At club level, it should be possible to set up a coaching committee to deal with the coaching aspect and for a separate group (maybe a parents' committee) to deal with recruitment. They would of course report back to the committee which could fulfil the co-ordinating role. I'll get to coaching in the next post but, recruitment!
To recruit you need to let the public know what they are joining and that you are there. Publicity, publicity and more publicity.
(1) The current press reports that Marina does are good and they are comprehensive. Remember too that local papers are desperate for good news stories, especially about youngsters because parents, aunties, grannies, cousins, etc will all buy the paper. So write up the Junior athletes whenever they do something even slightly good (a place in the local championships, even a personal best)as a separate story from the report and make sure that they get all the headlines. One time, it could be pupils from Clydebank High, the next from St Peter's and even from Boclair. Schools put such things up on notice boards - more publicity.
(2) We used to put four laminated posters into every local school (CHS, St Columba's, Braidfield, St Andrews and Boclair Academy.) Two were A3 size and two A4 size - unlaminated were no use - they always get knocked down from the wall and the paper ones just get torn and have a very short shelf life. It's not expensive to get them done and posted into the school.
(3) It is better to have them handed into the school and that brings in another point. If the schools are to be our major source of recruits then we have to make actual physical contact with them. A school liaison person should be appointed for each school with the full backing of the committee. Remit? To become familiar with and frends of the school staff, particularly PE staff. Parents are ideal for this role. They have a reason to go into the school - parents' nights, school sports days, etc - and the relationship is not hard to develop. Of course a retired club member could fill this role and use some of his/her time to visit the school on spotrts days and help out with organisation.
We always used to have good relations with schools and knew all the PE and other staff in them. We even invited some of them as guests of honour to our presentation - last time was in the early 90's when we had Iain Patterson from Clydebank High and Jim Burns from Boclair along.
(4) Make a point of visiting schools events such as the county schools relays in Duntocher and make a point of speaking to people from the schools. They all have a sports co-ordinator, so speak to them, get to know them and let them get to know you.
(5) The best recruiting sergeants are of course the children in the club themselves - much better than we will ever be! John Watt in Boclair was first class, Graeme Reid came into the sport because Balfron wanted someone to make up the school team with David Moore. David was a Harrier and he brought Graeme along - and Graeme won the Scottish Senior National in 2003. Many other examples come to mind but we need the junior athletes to bring their pals along - if each junior brought just one other pupil with them, the numbers are (would you believe it?) doubled immediately.
(6) Of course there are other youth groups and organisations in the burgh: football and rugby teams who want to keep fit during the summer, Scouts and Boys/Girls Brigades with sports badges to do, and so on.

It means doing some work and it means spending a minimum of money for the posters BUT in the main all it takes is time and organisation. A parents' committee for instance could take on a fair bit of the work and they could meet at training nghts while their children are training. Anyhow, that's my contribution here - coaching next time round.