Role of club coaching officer

[thebackbar1]

Looking for some feedback on what a club coaching officer does in your club, not what they should do according to the GAA docs ...

How much input does your coaching officer have on coaching individual teams ? How do you get coaches to adhere to the direction set by the coaching officer?

Any good initiatives your coaching officer has started ?

[Itchy]

Was coaching officer in my club for good few years. These are what I think most important duties are...

1. If you club starts at U6, every year new U6 groups come on board. Spend a lot of your time figuring out which parents you want to get involved and which you don't. Appoint people, do not just let any eejoit in. You'll be stuck with bad apples and you'll never get them to do the right thing by kids.

2. Don't have open meetings asking for volunteers yo coach. Identify a head coach for each group, work with them to get their coaching courses done. Let them pull in a head or two to help.

3. Set up a coaching sub committee with these head coaches. Agree as a group a way the club will play, what ages you will train in what way. Policies around game time etc. Do this as a group. If you've the right people involved it will be smoother than you'd think.

4. Work out your gaps and with same group work out how to address. So for example in my club it was getting into all schools in our area and making sure every kid got encouraged to come to club. In yours it might be different.

5. Find out what your coaches need - courses, equipment etc and get it for them. Bring it to your executive. investment in youth should be as much as your senior team.

Those are a few thoughts of the top of my head

[johnnycool]

Was coaching officer in my club for good few years. These are what I think most important duties are...

1. If you club starts at U6, every year new U6 groups come on board. Spend a lot of your time figuring out which parents you want to get involved and which you don't. Appoint people, do not just let any eejoit in. You'll be stuck with bad apples and you'll never get them to do the right thing by kids.

2. Don't have open meetings asking for volunteers yo coach. Identify a head coach for each group, work with them to get their coaching courses done. Let them pull in a head or two to help.

3. Set up a coaching sub committee with these head coaches. Agree as a group a way the club will play, what ages you will train in what way. Policies around game time etc. Do this as a group. If you've the right people involved it will be smoother than you'd think.

4. Work out your gaps and with same group work out how to address. So for example in my club it was getting into all schools in our area and making sure every kid got encouraged to come to club. In yours it might be different.

5. Find out what your coaches need - courses, equipment etc and get it for them. Bring it to your executive. investment in youth should be as much as your senior team.

Those are a few thoughts of the top of my head

All good those points but also set out a basic skills matrix for each agegroup, ie what are the clubs expectations that the club would expect every kid to be able to execute reasonably comfortably and get the coaches to focus on those.
Make sure you enforce the aspect that all kids should be proficient in these skillsets and set ones that are achievable at the end of the year and not at the start, kinda gets the coaches to spend more time with the weaker kids but like everything else once you get your headcoach in place they can tend to lose the run of themselves..

[Itchy]

Was coaching officer in my club for good few years. These are what I think most important duties are...

1. If you club starts at U6, every year new U6 groups come on board. Spend a lot of your time figuring out which parents you want to get involved and which you don't. Appoint people, do not just let any eejoit in. You'll be stuck with bad apples and you'll never get them to do the right thing by kids.

2. Don't have open meetings asking for volunteers yo coach. Identify a head coach for each group, work with them to get their coaching courses done. Let them pull in a head or two to help.

3. Set up a coaching sub committee with these head coaches. Agree as a group a way the club will play, what ages you will train in what way. Policies around game time etc. Do this as a group. If you've the right people involved it will be smoother than you'd think.

4. Work out your gaps and with same group work out how to address. So for example in my club it was getting into all schools in our area and making sure every kid got encouraged to come to club. In yours it might be different.

5. Find out what your coaches need - courses, equipment etc and get it for them. Bring it to your executive. investment in youth should be as much as your senior team.

Those are a few thoughts of the top of my head

All good those points but also set out a basic skills matrix for each agegroup, ie what are the clubs expectations that the club would expect every kid to be able to execute reasonably comfortably and get the coaches to focus on those.
Make sure you enforce the aspect that all kids should be proficient in these skillsets and set ones that are achievable at the end of the year and not at the start, kinda gets the coaches to spend more time with the weaker kids but like everything else once you get your headcoach in place they can tend to lose the run of themselves..

Absolutely. One of the club's most important roles but often underestimated.

[thebackbar1]

Thanks for the input, great information !!!!