ICSI NEWSLETTER – Autumn / Winter 2009 Issue No 29
Motto “Docendo Discimus” “We learn by teaching”
AUGUST COUNCIL MEETING
The final council meeting of the year took place at Clumber Park Hotel on Monday 17th August 2009 to review the year’s activities and consider dates and activities for the following year. The Chairman opened the meeting and started with matters arising from our previous meeting held on the 16th March 2009.
Sue Hart reported experiencing problems accessing the web site since Expression web had moved to a different server. She expected the problems to be resolved by mid August.
The Registrar confirmed a single sheet guide on the use of our logo and the use of designatory letters had been compiled and sent out with the last newsletter. All new members will receive a copy with their joining pack. This should help resolve most of the queries we receive.
Actions requiring attention had been resolved. The Chairman moved on the agenda items.
ACCOUNTS: We are continuing our policy of strict cost control and whilst we did spend money on banners and promotional material for our attendance at the British Shooting Show we now have a very comprehensive ‘exhibition pack’ which can be used at future events. Note: The organizers provided the stand FOC.
NATTS: It was confirmed the CPSA had pulled out of NATTS. With this development it will be interesting to see the consequences of this action.
CPSA: CPSA L1 coaching courses are still our main source of new applicants. The reduction of L2 senior courses however has limited some of our Associate members the chance to transfer to Member grade. We hope this will resolve in 2010 as our requirement is still five years experience and a Senior qualification conferred by a governing body.
BASC: BASC still qualify coaches to L1 Instructor. It was discussed whether our BASC members might be interested in attending ICSI practical workshops in the introduction to the clay disciplines.
LANTRA: LANTRA has started to advertise courses for shotgun coaching and the Registrar has received enquiries from LANTRA qualified coaches wishing to join ICSI. It is explained to them we recognize CPSA and BASC qualifications only, in this country.
GAME FAIRS: It was agreed that we would like to have a presence at Fairs such as CLA and West Midlands but all enquiries to date have shown it to be too expensive to have our own stand. We have also explored the possibility of sharing a stand with other organizations or trade members, with no success. We still believe it would be beneficial to have a relationship with an organisation for future permanent attendance, preferably on Gunmakers Row. To this end we will explore all suitable opportunities presented. Our Chairman has been in touch with the organizer of the Newark Fair and confirmed that we have been allocated a stand at the 2010 Fair, free of charge.
BSSC: Roger Hill confirmed that no meetings had been held since the previous cancelled meeting.
MEMBER’S PROFILES: The Registrar confirmed he was still working on a suitable standard member profile form that would satisfy the Council requirement. The Registrar gave details of an analysis carried out on the various descriptions and types of coaching and services offered on the forms received to date. In summary, there were 55 different ways describing the types of coaching and services offered which could be broken down further to 104 different sub descriptions. It was agreed that a tick the box type of standardized personal profile form is required that will satisfy most of our members skills. Once the design is completed a sample of the forms submitted to date would be transferred to the form and circulated to the Council for comment./approval.
APPLICATIONS AND TRANSFERS: Two applications for Associate membership were approved at the meeting.
Note: the Registrar submits applications and transfers to Council for ratification, at various times throughout the year we have actually 12 new Associate members and one transfer from Member top Fellow since our last newsletter.
We are still growing and sustaining our membership which in the present climate has to be considered good news.
AOB:
SEMINAR: Motivation and Mental Toughness was confirmed as the topic to be presented by Sports Coach UK. This would be a special bespoke workshop written for ICSI. It was confirmed that the afternoon session would be a talk on Cartridge Manufacture given by Mike Haw of Hull Cartridge. It was agreed that we would do another mail-shot to advise members of the confirmed afternoon session.
CORPORATE TRAINER: The Registrar advised that he was now receiving applications with copies of CPSA Corporate Trainer as a qualification. It was agreed that CPSA L1 is the only CPSA award that Council will accept for membership to ICSI.
MEMBERSHIP CARDS: The Registrar showed a sample of a laminated membership card which he proposed we introduce. This would need to be printed from our membership database prior to members actually paying their fees. The down side would be a wasted card if a particular member did not renew. The upside would be that members would receive a better quality membership card. Members joining throughout the year would be issued with a temporary old style card. Council agreed on a new style of card if it could be obtained a a reasonable cost.
The Chairman closed the meeting. Next Council meeting - Monday 15th March 2010, prior to the AGM.
NEW MEMBERS AND TRANSFERS
Membership applications and transfers received since our last newsletter were considered by Council. The following have accepted the grades offered:
New Associate: Andrew Robert Ridler (Andy), Craig Stanley Adams, Ian Kenneth Jones, John Gerald Perry, Kevin R Sterk, Nicholas Simpson (Nick), Derek Arthur Wetter, Brian Jones, James Edward Martin (Dean), Winston Broadhurst, Stephen Anthony John Urquhart, Denis Ivor Kent
Transfer Member to Fellow: Andrew John Kirkland (Andy)
I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the Council to welcome the new members listed to The Institute. The Institute was set up on 1987 to provide an organisation of qualified Clay Shooting Instructors to promote and set standards of qualifications for the art and sport of clay shooting instruction.
Please remember you the members are The Institute and you are out there to set the standards. Please make the effort and be pro-active, and if you have any ideas, suggestions, or questions, please phone Keith Stoker, Registrar, on 01913-842499. Your ideas and/or suggestions will be put before the council at the next council meeting. (You will be given their response).
Please read our "Articles of Constitution" and "Codes of Conduct". Any queries regarding their content or interpretation ring the Registrar for clarification.
As it is now possible to take a CPSA L1 and L2 award in the same year we are receiving more requests for transfer to Member grade from Associate members within a year of becoming an Associate member.
Associate members wishing to be considered for transfer should note that they must satisfy the Council that they have a broad experience of shooting instruction for a minimum of 5 years and have passed a Senior or Advanced award for Council to grant the transfer request.
SEMINAR WORKSHOP
Our 12th Professional Improvement Workshop was held at the Clumber Park Hotel on Monday 14th September 2009.
The morning workshop “Motivation & Mental Toughness” was presented by Neil Roach of Sports Coach UK.
Neil is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). He has worked as a Lecturer in the Science of Sports Coaching and as Director of Sports Science at Manchester and Sport England NW Region. He is currently Project Leader in Sports Psychology at MMU. The sports he has worked very closely with are golf, tennis and hockey and he is currently Sports Psychologist with the Qutar Archery Squad.
Neil started the workshop by stating that this workshop was bespoke, he had been contacted by Sports Coach UK when we asked for this subject in particular, and asked to prepare an update to be presented especially for ourselves (Note we first did this workshop in 2001 and it had been taken off their list and was not yet due to be re-write when we requested it again). He asked what we hoped to gain by attending the workshop and said that he wished to address our particular questions/issues and help provide the answers/solutions to motivation and mental toughness issues specific to our sport. He said that he intended the workshop to be very proactive. After a brief discussion he showed a slide detailing the psychological demands a performer had to cope with to achieve a performance.
In no particular order a performer needs to have Motivation, Confidence, Discipline, a professional Attitude and have Attention/Concentration. Be able to deal with Frustration, Success, Failure, Anxiety and making a Mistake. Have good Pre-Match Preparation and be able to Perform when Fatigued.
To bring all this together and produce a performance requires Mental Strength/ Toughness, Coping Ability and a Range of Strategies.
Neil then put up a slide he called “Anxiety Spiders” which showed nineteen different examples of thoughts that influence performance, some of which were.
Finding your mind wanders when you compete.
Feeling that you are going to make another mistake once you have made a mistake.
Finding that your mind wanders during competition or training.
Feeling nervous at the start.
Being able to concentrate towards the end of a competition, etc.
“You could go on the list many more causes of anxiety that inhibit good performance”. KS
We then moved on to discuss Coping Ability using a slide showing a list of Mental Strategies for Psychological demands. The information interchange was flowing so quickly now, and with so much detail, that accurate note taking started to slow the process down and notes eventually became heading prompts only.
“Mental Toughness” was the next subject referred to and the appropriate slide was presented and discussed. We were asked what was meant by “Mental Approach”, is it a skill or just about greater understanding?
Neil suggested that Mental Toughness was probably one of the most used but least understood terms used in applied sport psychology. That despite differences of opinion there is some agreement that mental toughness is reflected in the performer’s ability to cope with stress and resultant anxiety associated with high pressure (competitive) situations.
Gould et al (1987) stated that 82% of coaches rated mental toughness as the most important psychological attribute in determining wrestling success.
A good definition that emerged from the Jones et al (2000) paper was, Mental Toughness is having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to Generally cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on a performer. Specifically be more consistent and better than you opponents in remaining determined, focussed and in control under pressure.
After a detailed discussion and a number of slides on Mental Toughness and what influences the mental process we moved on. Consistency was the next topic we looked at, each listing what we would do to help our shooters improve their consistency.
We compared ideas and Neil made some relevant notes and proposals on flip chart. He then drew our attention to a philosophy he had written “Aggregation of Small Margins” commenting that this was probably one of the most useful ideas that we could take away. The GB cycling team had used this philosophy to produce their winning team.
“Get a lot of small things right, put them all together and they add up to a significant gain”. KS
Neil stressed that with all problems we needed to look at and examine the Affect, the Behaviour and the Consequences, the ABC of the problem. We need to identify and address Causes of competitive anxiety, not just treat symptoms.
We were now well passed our due finish time and so Neil quickly gave us some issues to address.
Control the Controllable - everything else is a drain on the performer’s resources (fatigue) and is likely to cause a decrease in performance.
Routine that is compatible with the technical requirements, planned and practised is an essential Stage 1.
Need to Identify and Address causes of competitive anxiety, not just treat the symptoms (expectation, perceptions of the demands of the situation) and practice anxiety provoking situations.
Neil ended the workshop with the advice, separate “Fact” and “Emotion” and base decisions on “Fact”.
We reconvened after lunch for a presentation on the “Hull Cartridge Company” by Mike Haw, Sales and Operations Manager.
Mike started by stating that Sidney Bontoft had started loading cartridges about 1930 and formed the company in 1947. The company is still owned and run by the Bontoft family in Hull, with Chairman Peter Bontoft assisted by MD David Bontoft and Sales & Marketing Director Susan Bontoft.
The present workforce is 36 with half of that number employed in the factory.
They hold a Royal Warrant and load many custom loads for most of the prestigious gun companies and shooting grounds in this country.
They assemble cartridges from component parts from France and Italy and use six different Nobel propellants made specially for themselves.
They normally carry a minimum stock of 14 million primed Cheddite cases which increases to 21 million in July to cover supply problems due to continental holidays.