Sunday the 18th of January saw the first SVA Regional Development 
Day take place in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Linlithgow. Designed to increase participation and to educate junior coaches, this day was well received. Over 75 players working joyfully with 10 Scottish Coaches across three cities is a good start. From the feedback received it is safe to say the day was an overall success. One of the participant coaches said “players loved it coaches loved it looking forward for day 2”.
For the young players, their enthusiasm, dedication and eagerness to learn are a tribute to them and a positive sign for the future of the Scottish game. For the coaches, engaging in a process of collective learning with a real coaching task and creating a community of practice is priceless. Learning in the conditions can bring them together and create a point of contact that allows for particular and formal pieces of coaching education to be repeated and passed on.
Aberdeen report:
20 youngsters turned up for the S4/5/6 session in the morning full of enthusiasm and took to their tasks well. The session had a great focus on the fundamentals of movement and position and the players were challenge to think about the mental aspect of the game and to recognise the importance of body positioning.
The sessions were brilliant lead by Ross Allan and Agata Aleksandra Zaremba, but encouragingly local coaches Bee Berx, Ally Reid and Cory and PE teaching staff were all in attendance to assist and learn from the day.
The 2nd session saw 16 more youngster enter the hall, this time aged S3 and below, the basics of ball control were introduced and the group worked up to playing some 3v3 games by the end of the session, the improvement in such a short space of time was very encouraging.
A brilliant start to the northern development day programme.
Glasgow report:
Sunday was a great day for many different reasons. Firstly to be working in the emirates arena in such world class facilities was a great delight. The boys session was a great success. We had 10 young men from Lorne volleyball club, 3 from Williamwood high school, 1 from St Benedict’s high school and 2 club players 1 from Mets and one from Su Ragazzi. The morning session was great we were able to work on some ball control looking at the role of first pass in developing team play. This then allowed the boys to work towards attacking and trying to break down ball control. The day was finished off by developing team games 6v6. This was important as the group from Lorne had never experience volleyball on a full-size match court!!! As always the day was aided by Zalina, peter and Jana.
In the afternoon, 6 hardy girls had made the journey from Marr college and South Ayrshire vc. Coaches were in abundance as ross MacDonald, Garry Normington and Vince Krawczyk were on hand to give their assistance to the girls. The day for the girls was very intense, working very technical in parts and receiving almost 1 on 1 coaching. During the session the coaches were able to look at service reception in detail. The quality of work that was achieved by the girls was incredible. This later allowed the coaches to work on the link between first pass and attack, especially first tempo. Again with the coach ratio being high the level of information on offer was extremely high.
I really enjoyed the day, the attendance for the first day was pretty encouraging and I am looking forward to the next day.
Linlithgow report
East Regional Development Day 1 saw 8 boys and 16 girls attend a 3
hour training session Linlithgow Academy. Every athlete turned up with a desire to improve their game and there was a real buzz in the hall throughout the day. The boys session was led by RDO Lynne Beattie and the girls session led by Juliana Fachana, both passing on a wealth of experience to our willing players. Both sessions focussed on the theme of Ball Control and were extremely impressed by not only the application but the skill level of all in attendance.
A great opportunity for both players and coaches.
Many thanks to the three regional development officers Graeme Spowart, Lynne Beattie and Andrew Fleming who supported this project by listening and educating participants. We are hoping that through this collaboration we can continue to make contact with enthusiastic individuals and identify potential participants for the Coach Education and Development programmes.
