Chalfont Softball Club Achieves Clubmark Accreditation

Chalfont Softball Club is the first softball club in the UK to achieve Clubmark accreditation through BaseballSoftballUK, its national governing body.

Formed in 2004, Chalfont Softball Club has two adult teams that play in the Windsor and Maidenhead District Mixed Softball League. Chalfont Phoenix is now an established team in Division 1 of the league and Chalfont Flames have been pushing for Division 2 honours for the last three seasons.

In 2009, the Club recognised that if it was to progress and evolve, then it would need to develop junior softball programmes, not only within the Club, but also locally in schools and youth organisations. BaseballSoftballUK’s Clubmark accredition scheme seemed the obvious route to take in order to acheive this.

Ensuring Safety for Young People

Gaining Clubmark accreditation means that Chalfont Softball Club has proved it is a safe, effective and child-friendly club in which young people will have a worthwhile and fun experience playing softball.

Neil Turner, Head Coach of Chalfont Softball Club, said “The process has been a hard but worthwhile one, our Club now has a good framework in place for it to run smoothly, successfully and most importantly, safely for both our existing members and for future junior and adult members.”

The Club has policies in place that help to ensure that the conduct of its players, coaches and volunteers meets those expected of a friendly, sporting and professional sports club. It has four BSUK qualified coaches who run well-planned weekly training sessions and a development plan that maps out how the club will achieve its aspirations.

Clare Winter, Chairman of Chalfont Softball Club said “The accreditation should help us to recruit new members, a central part of our development as a club. We are particularly excited about creating links with local schools over the Winter in time for the start of the 2011 season next Spring. We have successfully trialled our “Introduction to Softball” programme this Summer and we are excited about expanding it over the next couple of years.”

Junior Softball at Chalfont and Ley Hill School

The Clubmark accreditation process has given the club confidence to start working with young people. This Summer has seen the first male and female junior members playing for Chalfont Flames and Chalfont’s coaches have found it rewarding to see the players establish themselves in the team, showing progression throughout the season and incredible future promise.

The Club has also run a successful junior softball programme for a group of 9 and 10 year olds from Ley Hill Primary School near Chesham. Chalfont’s qualified coaches have run sessions for between 10 and 22 children on Saturday mornings throughout July and August as an introduction to the sport.

Neil said that “The Introduction to Softball programme has been a great learning experience for both the children and our coaches. It was our first experience of teaching junior softball and we have found it to be very enjoyable and thoroughly rewarding. The Clubmark process gave us the confidence to introduce this programme on a small scale and we are looking forward to expanding it next Summer. Ideally we would like to attract enough youngsters between the ages of 14 and 17 to be able to run junior team in the Windsor League.”

Other clubs should follow Chalfont’s lead

Chalfont Softball Club encourages other softball clubs to obtain Clubmark accreditation. Neil concluded “Although there are many steps involved in the Clubmark process, it has not been as challenging as it first appeared. We received great support from BSUK and in particular, Paul Wilkinson, BSUK’s Club Development Manager, and Stan Doney, BSUK’s South East Coach-in-Residence, were incredibly helpful and supportive throughout the process. We hope that the two other softball clubs in our league that have started the process will gain their accreditation prior to the start of the 2011 season and we look forward to working with them to create a junior softball league in our area in the forthcoming seasons.”