Development Of Softball Coaching Staff

You may or may not be aware that Neil Turner and Clare Winter have been working towards their Level 2 Softball Coaching awards this spring. Following a weekend of classroom modules and two practical assessments, they were left with proving that they have run six training sessions of which four needed to show a linked progression.

Well this week they have received their coaching awards after submitting training session plans for all Chalfont's training sessions since we started training at the beginning of March.

Gaining Level 2 is quite a milestone for both Neil and Clare and the club. It now means that:

• we have proved that all our training sessions are planned well
• we can now comply with the Clubmark requirement that all our training sessions are run by qualified coaches
• we now have two coaches that can (after a small payment to BSUK) be insured to run training sessions and events outside of our club - in schools and youth organisations for example or corporate softball days
• we now have the capability to run the eight week softball programme for a group of 9 and 10 year olds over in Ley Hill during July and August

To build on this development futher, the next step would be to start helping our Level 1 coaches start working towards their Level 2, and to find some more players interested in starting (or continuing) their Level 1.

Neil and Clare would be interested in hearing from anyone in the club who would like to start getting a coaching qualification.

Differences Between Softball And Rounders

Neil is looking for someone that is up in the rules of rounders for a future article for this website.

Following a number of discussions with people involved with running sports clubs in the South Buckinghamshire area, it is apparent that there are very strong links between rounders and softball, with a large overlap in the general princples of each game and that anyone with skills in rounders can find it easy to apply those skills and start playing softball. This was highlighted this weekend when a rounders player attended our training session and showed immediately that she would make an excellent softballer in a short space of time.

If you are interested in helping Neil with this article then please drop him an email or fill out the contact us form on this website.