The UBSport Volleyball club have been awarded a National Lottery Grant to help continue their development of the sport in local junior schools.
The £10,000 bid to the ‘Awards for All’ programme has been successful and will be used to create new and enhance existing opportunities for young people to play volleyball.
The money will be spent on additional equipment and coaching time as well as running half-term and summer camps during the next academic year. However £1,700 has been assigned for coach education so will be used to develop a number of student coaches to increase the club’s extra-curricular coaching capacity in local schools.
Started a little over 18 months ago, the junior development programme has proved a huge success with the one school on board soon expanding to 14. The club now reaches over 350 children each week in both primary and secondary schools.
In the last year, the club has now attracted nearly £22,000 in support of its junior development programme from grant awarding bodies, schools and Partnership Development managers.
The club’s Head Coach, Graham Fowler, put the success down to the club’s clear vision: “After our initial funding from the Local Network Fund, the club established a 5 year junior development plan and school-club link model that made it clear to schools and other stakeholders the value of investing in this club’s activities. They can see the progression routes and pathways, not just for young people who are good at volleyball but also those that might want to volunteer as much as play.”