Club Mark Folder Now Submitted For Assessment

Over the last 8 months the club has been undergone a review of systems that exist at the club with regards to 4 major areas in order to achieve Club Mark, which is a charter mark award for athletics.  Upon gaining the award the club will be eligible for funding as well as the recognition that the club is a safe environment for athletes and coaches to do what they do best - athletics.

Harry Evans and Neil Templeman have analysed the systems in place with a view to improvement of certain areas of club systems.  The four major areas that were under assessment were;

1.  Duty of Care And Child Protection

2.  The Coaching and Competition Programme

3.  Ethics and Sports Equity

4.  Club Management

As a results of Club Mark the club has devised a coach induction process for all existing and new coaches at the club which include knowledge on several different topics i.e. health and safety, first aid, child protection issues along with duty of care to athletes etc. 

Systems have been put in place for the event of an emergency, welfare officers in place, coaches have attended a child protection workshop, first aid and health and safety workshops.  All coaches have gained police checks which is compulsory at the club for any coach as part of good practice.

Secondly, an athlete induction process has been put in place which can be found in the Juniors Section of this web site.  The aim of this process is provide athletes and parents with information of how the club works, who the coaches are, with photos of each coach at the club.  Safety information has been included along with code of conduct for athletes and parents to abide by whilst with Vale Royal AC. 

An Induction booklet has been developed, which can also be found on this web site to provide athletes with lots of information about how the club operates.  Electronic newsletters have just been made up, once again in the effort to improve communication between athletes, parents and the club.

The next stages of this process will be to gain as many email addresses as possible from parents, so parents can be emailed necessary electronic newsletters once every four months, as well as providing necessary information on events.  Lastly, the club want more parents to view and access the web site to keep them up to date with developments at the club.

Once the award is gained, there has to be a continuous effort each year to show that the club is still striving to maintain the standards each year with repeated portfolios assessments.