Dorset Coaches Association report for member’s – March 2017

Dorset ECB Coaches Association

On the18th September 2016,there was a county and district coaches meeting at Hurn,where Matt Keetch, Paul Prichard, Rob Newton and Greg Parsons explained and demonstrated the type of integrated cricket coaching that Dorset should be delivering. During this session, minimum skill sets for district and county cricket players were discussed using a document produced by Matt and Rob. The types of recommended skill practices were demonstrated and all district and county coaches were urged to introduce the ECB basic core fitness regime to their squads. The report is available.

The national forum for all county coach associations(CAs) to share best practice was held on the 15th October 2016, at Edgbaston. There were four attendees from the Dorset ECB CA. We decided that we would try to determine how many Dorset clubs used coaches not in the CA and attempt to persuade them of the benefit of doing so and hence increase our membership. For some counties like Yorkshire this is a significant number.

In November 2016, Greg Parsons organised a L2 Children’s course over two weekends which was delivered by the Dorset Coach Education Tutor team. The 16 or so candidates will be a welcome addition to the Dorset CA when they complete their assessments in the spring 2017.

At the National Forum meeting in December 2016, the following pertinent information was discussed:

  • To get more people actively coaching, they should be inspired and kept engaged. We must identify the issues which stop them coaching such as needing a DBS if they only coach adult cricket.
  • The ECB coaching courses should be less bureaucratic which may mean reviewing our relationship with UKCC as other sports bodies are doing.
  • We should consider a new entry level programme for L1 and review the current coaching pathway.
  • It was strongly stated that clubs should take responsibility for ensuring and recording the DBS status of all officials that worked with club juniors. I was noted that the new ClubMark process was now self-certificated and there are currently no verifier checks. Hence it was important that county boards engaged with clubs that had junior sections and check that volunteers had valid DBS checks.
  • Different classes of membership of the ECB CA are being actively considered. All classes will have access in some form to the on-line material such as icoach cricket.
  • A national coaching conference will be held on the 28th and 29th October 2017. Funds will be sought to subsidise Dorset coach’s attendance.

Two very enjoyable Dorset coaching workshops were run in February 2017, aimed at increasing the skills of club coaches before the club coaching season:

  • Realistic Net practices with basic video setup on 19th February at Lytchett Manor Sports Centre.

15 coaches attended this session and the report will be available on the web site.

  • Developing your spin bowler on 28th February at Dorchester.

11 coaches attended this interactive session and the report will be available on the web site.

Welcome to the Dorset CA conference for 2017 which is designed to help the club coach to prepare for the new season.

Tom Snape, Dorset ECB CA chair

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