ESTABLISHING A YOUTH CLUB
An important foundation for every hockey club is a strong youth club. They are the next generation of hockey players, coaches, officials and volunteers.
For hockey clubs, we can provide information and advice on building and establishing a strong youth section to attract more young players to playing hockey.
Whether you introduce young players to your club as total beginners, or through school pathways, they all need a quality introduction. This comes through planning, hard work and enthusiasm.
You will find information and guidance here that will help guide the management of your club's youth section.
Season Planning
It is good practice for any club to plan for the future. This also applies to your hockey club's youth section.
With effective planning, you can
- organise and promote fun activities to attract young people to the club
- recruit volunteers and club members to help run the youth section
- keep young people enthusiastic about hockey and your club with regular participation
Our Sample Season Plan can give you some ideas of what activities you might like to run, and when. It also indicates how and when you should plan each of the activities to ensure a good amount of preparation time.
- Download a Sample Junior Season Programme.
Collecting Information about Youth Players
It is important to gather information about your members and players, particularly when dealing with young people.
This enables you:
- to contact them with information about club activities for them to participate in
- have emergency contact details to hand in case of an accident
- ensure you have appropriate permission for the activities you run for young people
The Safe in Care form is a detailed form that allows you to collect the information you should have to meet your duty of care.
- Download the Safe in Care form
Parents' Role in Youth Clubs
Parents are an untapped resource for many clubs.
Parents bring their children to the hockey sessions, pay their fees, buy their equipment and support them when they are playing.
With some prompting, many of them would become further involved. A Parent Welcome Pack is great way to introduce your club to them and you could consider creating one.
It could provide them with details of the club activities and ways in which they can get involved with the club e.g. volunteer time or help running activities.
Our Guide to Getting Parents Involved is a short guide that illustrates examples of what parents can do to help, and includes a Sample Parents Rota.
- Download Guide to Getting Parents Involved
- Download Sample Parents Rota
- Download Parents Rota Template
Social Activities
Social activities are an important part of life for young people and hockey has a great reputation as a social sport.
It is important to show junior members that being part of a hockey club is more than just playing.
Our Guide to Organising Social Activities for Junior Members gives you some ideas.
Skill Activities
Young people like to measure their skills against themselves and others.
We have advice about two different methods for assessing players and their improvements.
Player and Goalkeeper Observation Sheets are used when assessing international players. They identify key areas that National Coaches look for when assessing players.
- Download the Goalkeeper Observation Sheet
- Download the Player Observation Sheet
If you have any enquiries about running Youth Clubs or need for further information, please contact us.
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