Electronic Timing - we have orde

LAVic Centre No. 43	Lilydale & Yarra Ranges Little Athletics Centre

REMINDERS

LAVic Junior Development Squad (JDS). A great opportunity for promising U12-U15 athletes to improve their skills and performance - for full details click the link below:

Centre Uniforms CLICK HERE!!! for Centre Apparel Photos and Prices.

Coaching for 2011-2012 T&F Season has commenced - see Coaching page for details

COMPETITION DAYS

We have a number of new initiatives this year:-

We will be running all of our Centre Competition Days the same way we run our end of season Personal Champions Day. (These days in the past have been a raging success)

We will not be having Age Group Managers this season.

The children will congregate at the Club Tent area and will proceed to each event as called. There will be a Whiteboard showing the current event for each age group.

We will still require a parent to escort the U6, U7 & U8 age groups to their events (those of you who volunteered your services for these age groups at the AGM would be the obvious people for this)

Each particular event will be run by parents and an Event Manager. There will be a "roaming" Coach or Coaches on the day assisting / helping / advising across a wide range of events.

We believe this system will expose all of our children to the benefits of our Coaches and experienced parents rather than just specific age groups as has been the case in the past.

Most of our Coaches and experienced parents have thrown their support behind this new system and we look forward to implementing it along with your help.

We still, of course, require parent involvement. A Little Athletics program requires around 70 parents to get involved each week (this does not include set up , pack up, Canteen etc). We have had fantastic support in this regard in the past and trust that this will continue this season.

Full parent involvement will enable people to "have a break" on a rotating basis. Please make sure you offer your services. We hope we do not have to go down the track that other Centres travel, that of Duty Rosters, Point Penalties etc.

Don't leave it to the same parents every week because surprise surprise they have kids they want to watch each week as well !!

Weekly Event Programs We will be operating on a 4 week Program this season. Click HERE!! for Programs. This provides a better spread of events for all age groups and allows us the flexibility to even up discrepancies that sometimes occur during the season due to issues such as weather, light etc

Race Walking - is a sanctioned event held at Region & State levels. We will be introducing the Walks on a trial basis (no points) for 2 out of every 4 weeks.

Other initiatives explained in more detail below are:

Electronic Timing

New Database Recording System

Clubs

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday 7th October

Some detailed information in reference to the above

Electronic Timing - we have ordered an 8 lane electronic timing gate system for our sprint track. This system will be ready for delivery some time in October / November.

There are a number of benefits from such a system, including, more accurate times and placings in events, less timekeepers required freeing parents up for other duties and familiarisation for our kids for such a system for when they compete at Regions and State Championships

Recording Database - we have also purchased a new database / recording system (NARS - Networked Athletics Recording System). This system will streamline our recording processes and will provide us with some very useful and meaningful Reports. Athletes will be able to access results from our website in a whole range of formats. We will also be eliminating the "messy" tickets handed out at each event and replacing them with a meaningful Report for each child the following week. This Report will contain information such as event, time, PB, Achievement level of this performance and the performance required for the next Achievement level.

Clubs - we are also continuing with our quest to even up the member numbers in our 4 Clubs (Jaguars, Comets, Redbacks & Mustangs). We propose to hold a Club competition day this year - probably in October - whereby the Clubs will nominate athletes for certain events and points will be awarded towards an overall Shield (similar to a Schools House Sports Day). The Club tables will be your point of contact during the season for Newsletters, athlete result reports, certificates, general information etc. Please make sure you use these Tables.

Event Managers - we partly introduced running our Program with Event Managers at each event last season. We intend to continue with this system for the upcoming season. This has proven to be a very successful way to run our Program - the results and performances at our Personal Champions Day at the end of the last 2 seasons is testament to this. The Event Managers system is purely for the benefit of the children. We believe it provides a better environment for the children to learn the events and it provides continuity in the way the events are run each week. We have a number of children who, through no fault of their own, do not know how perform in certain events. We also have other children who know how to perform but can greatly benefit from small pieces of advice during the events. This applies to both the athletes who attend training sessions (positive reinforcement of skills learned at training) and to those who don't or cannot attend training.

Initially we hope to get the support of the experienced parents to assist us with this system. The less experienced parents can assist / watch the experienced parents in the early weeks with a view to "taking over" in subsequent weeks. The Rules pertaining to each event are very straight forward and simple. There are generally only a few important Rules to know in each case. We will also have 2 x "roaming" Event Managers / Coaches who will assist where required. If we get enough parents helping in this regard (and remember we will require less parents on time-keeping this year) you will not get "stuck" on the one event all year (as is the common fear). In fact you will have weeks whereby you do not have any major duty / role at all. We, as a Committee, firmly believe this system is the right way to go for the running of our Centre competitions. (We are not re-inventing the wheel here - most other centres operate on this basis and it is also the way in which Open Days and Region & State Championships are run).

We currently have a large number of parents (more than we require) who have volunteered their services as Age Group Managers. This support for our Centre is fantastic. We do however believe that we can better utilise this large number of parents each week. (Some Age Group Managers, by their own admission, have stated that they do not know the Rules etc for certain events - we need to improve the system for the benefit of our children).

We urge you to support us and our children in continuing to introduce the Event Managers system in running our weekly Centre programs. For those of you who have volunteered with other parents as Age Group Managers for the same age group - maybe talk to each other and do the Event Manager thing on a rotating basis.

Let's all get behind this and give it a try - we as a Committee believe it will improve our Centre in a number of ways - we've got nothing to lose!!

Please email your support info@lyrlac.org.au or any questions / comments you may have.