Life never stops

Wow trying to blog all the time is hard work when you lead a busy life.
Seems times are hard for the LTA Britain lost to Lithuania in the Davis Cup. More jobs have been slashed at the headquarters, John Lloyd has resigned and coaches around the country seem to be despondent with the vast array of changes in coach education seemingly continuing to be added to their abilities to just go out and coach.
Now i am one for continuing education and every coach should do this not only for themselves, but for the people they are coaching. There is nothing worse than a coach who has passed a coaching course and then never attends to expand on that knowlegde.
It seems to me word on the ground is many are being put off coaching. From my point of view i am beginning to see less younger coaches coming through to full time coaching, clubs are having difficulties finding the right coaches and many clubs seemingly need to have the clubmark kite of standard.
For me if a club needs this then either they have had a hard time in the past with previous coaches or they are actually quite poor in monetary terms that they need funding from the LTA in which case they need to be apart of that scheme all the same.
Being chairman of a club i personally am looking for the following in a coach
A coaching certification
Insurance
CRB check
First aid
and the ability to continue their education to the fullest.

On top of this i want someone who is not afraid of hard work and can work on their own with the abilities to progress the coaching programme without having to be asked. This however is not enough. I also want someone with character and personality who can interact with anyone within the club. Too much to ask? Maybe, but you do not come across many coaches like this with all the ingredients above.

In the unlikely case i am wrong send me a c.v. i can guarantee you a job.

Coaches like these can produce income for the club without the need for funding. They can build the membership up adult and junior alike and for sure are worth their weight in gold.

Then comes the trouble when a substandard committee who only work part time have no real interest in the club and sit a few times a year to get together in a power ridden way thinking they have a business acumen to run a club in a professional way.

As a country the clubs are struggling with an ability to work alongside coaches to develop the club and more intent on asking how much can you pay us so we can make some money from you. Or you are not producing new members so we are employing someone else.

Over the past few months many of my good friends have fallen fowl of this. Now you see why i opted for the chairman job and head coach job at the same time! Here i truly can produce a junior club with an adult section rather than the other way around. In this respect the local council have handed the 5 courts to me for free as long as the public get access. Perfect.....now to build this 'inner city' club from the ground up.

For myself i have been busy writing courses to run and alongside this and a batch of policies and procedures so that coaches within the organisation i work can access a coaching course that will lead to a coaching licence.

Gone are the days when a student walked up to you and asked if you were a coach, how much do you cost and when can you fit me in?

I am sure it is for the best, if not i am moving to Croatia a tennis producing nation who have no coaching system to speak of, you do not need a qualification to coach there and anyone can call themselves a coach!

Oh Croatian tennis players past and present http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Croatian_tennis_players

Rant over more later lol