December 2009
ABERGAVENNY HOCKEY CLUB SECURES SPORTS COUNCIL LOTTERY CASH INJECTIONMembers of Abergavenny Hockey Club are set to reap the benefits of a cash investment into the health of the region as it was today announced that £1,000 in total of the Sports Council for Wales' Community Chest scheme will be ploughed into their project to improve the provision of qualified coaches within the club.
Community Chest is a National Lottery funded grant aid scheme designed to encourage more people to become more physically active more often.
Since its inception in 1999, communities across the length and breadth of Wales have been investing heavily in sports and physical activity projects.
As a result of its popularity, the Sports Council for Wales has recently raised the level of grant available. Organisations keen to develop sport & physical activity in Wales can now receive up to £1000 for a qualifying project over a 12 month period, and Abergavenny Hockey Club is one of the latest to benefit.
By harnessing the pulling power that sports clubs in particular possess within the local community, the Sports Council for Wales is now providing them with extra ammunition by making them eligible for two Community Chest awards in any financial year.
The hockey club plans to put the money to good use immediately. Much of the focus of the immediate time-frame will be to continue to attract junior players to the club. It is recognised, however, that just attracting numbers to the club is all well and good, but that in order for those junior players to be challenged and enjoy a productive time, investment needs to be made in the coaching structure. Sessions must be well prepared and organised otherwise the players will lose interest. Relying on volunteer club members to provide the training, coaching, and matches, means that those volunteers should be provided with the appropriate training themselves. This will enable them to deliver well prepared sessions, differentiated accordingly to the skill level and age, of the attendees.
Providing such training to the volunteers, will naturally cost money, and it is the receipt of the Community Chest fund that enables the club to make the preparations for these volunteers to obtain formal coaching qualifications.
Vice Chairman of the club, Rebecca Bushrod, said "We are very lucky in this club to have a number of people who are prepared to regularly give up their time to help in our junior training sessions. I am very excited that the club now has the funding available to offer some of these volunteers the ability to proceed with coaching courses, with a view to obtaining accredited qualifications. We will then be able to use the skills and knowledge of our coaches throughout the club to benefit the Senior as well as the Junior section".
Sports clubs are a vital part of the fabric of community life. They, and the people behind the scenes, have the opportunity to source and mould young talent into the stars of the future and instill the core values of hard work, belief and - above all - enjoyment of the sport.
Community Chest funding is helping to create and support new sporting opportunities for young people all across Wales. Funding can be used to train coaches and administrators, small-scale equipment grants for junior development, the establishment of competitive structures for juniors within the community, junior club start-up costs and support for sporting events and festivals.
Char of the Sports Council for Wales, Philip Carling said:
"Community Chest has been and continues to be a huge success and is very popular throughout Wales. The increase in funding and the greater scope of the scheme will increase its effectiveness.
"The simplest ideas often deliver the biggest impact. Panels based in each of the 22 local authorities in Wales hold the purse strings and have delegated authority to aware grants to worthwhile projects, We want to hear of bright ideas and projects that will get more people active more often".
Contacts:
Sports Council for Wales Press Office
e-mail: publicity@scw.org.uk
Tel: 0845 045 0904
www.sports-council-wales.org.uk
