Discussion: team coach

Probably my memory, but the way I remember it is that the money was approved at the budget meeting and you had approval to go hire someone to start coaching and organizing training camps. The minutes reflect that $9600 went in the VP Competition budget under coaching - and the implication is that about a third was for Bob T, a third for coaching and a third for training camps. I don't remember anything about the money needing to be used for juniors - maybe just that there was a hope that some of the juniors close to being ready to move to the senior team might be able to take advantage of the coaching and training camps. All along I thought the issue was that you couldn't find someone that wanted the position. Interesting that you took away that you didn't have control of that money.

Yeah, I sent an e-mail to Clare (and Janet and Jeff on the junior side) not long after the meeting, saying what I thought needed to be done, and wondering who was in charge, because I didn't think it was me, given that the authorization to spend was given to Clare and the focus of the Board in so many ways was juniors. I'm not talking here about what was in the minutes, rather the feeling I had sitting in that room.

The only thing I heard back was from Clare in January. She controlled the money, but she didn't have time to get involved in making things happen. She would authorize paying for expenses of organizing training camps, preferably open to senior and junior team members, and others. For a coach, there would have to be a contract.

At that point, I was just going into my hectic season at work, so I didn't pursue it as I should have. But I had also set up a mechanism to help fund senior team members going to training camps, using money in the Team Fund. So during that time and up to the present we have been supporting a training camp in January in California, plus individuals going to training camps in Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic.

And I assumed something was going on on the junior level.

You are right, the first person I had in mind as a coach changed his mind. The second person also. There is still a need. We have been lucky to get superb team leadership at recent WOCs from Tom Hollowell, but we need someone here in the States. Not easy to find.

I'm sure I could have done more to make things happen. Live and learn. And I certainly could use the money for the team budget.

So....does this mean we can actually advertise the coaching position someplace? I don't think that's happened yet... All the bureaucracy and unpleasantness aside, we still have the money and still have the time to put it to good use. What needs to happen to get things going? Can I do anything to help?

I'm with Boris, if there is anything I can do, let me know. I can hardly believe that all that money has been sitting around. Peter the support to training camps you mentioned above, did that come out of this budget or out of the team fund?

As far as I know, nothing has come out of the coach/training budget. All training support I mentioned came from the Team Fund.

So, what to do? There are a couple of ways to proceed.

One is the "proper, organized" way. You figure out your needs and your priorities, research what the options are, come up with a plan, modify it as needed to get everyone on board, get it approved by the powers that be, and then try to execute it.

Another way is the "first come, first served" way. If there is a proposal for something, and it seems in line with our needs and priorities, then just do it.

For the money we have been spending from the Team Fund, we've more or less used the second way. I get proposals, and Tom Carr and I figure out to what extent we can and should support them. (The ESC approved this method, we need Tom's and my approval but not the whole ESC.)

For money in the coach/training account. I'd suggest we might get more done this way too. The approach last fall was the first way -- assessment of needs, various options, job description for a possible coach, budget -- and the end result was nothing got done. Whereas, the money USOF has been spending for some junior initiatives is just dealt with the second way -- a proposal is made and if it sounds good, it is approved. Much simpler.

So, how can anyone help? If someone can find a willing and qualified coach, then we can see about signing them on. I don't think we need to worry about a full search and getting a pool of qualified candidates and then having a selection committee, and so on. We're not talking very much money.

And if someone has the initiative to get training stuff organized (including maybe bringing over a European "star" or two), and if it seems like a reasonable plan, then I'm sure we can get funding for it too.

Here is the last version of a job description for a coach. At the USOF Board meeting last November, item #1 was stripped out and given to Bob Turbyfill to execute, along with $3,000 of the budget.

Can we make up for lost time on this? Better late than never.

I'll post this on the team mailing list too.

I might add that I seem to function much better under the second method. I like to just decide something and move on. I get bogged down big-time when the process gets more involved, and I have a hard time getting closure.

Hah, sometimes good things show up unexpected....

Got the following e-mail from Brendan Shields:

Peter,

In reference to the stuff in your AP log, Ross and I were thinking of organizing some kind of training camp before the 2008 spring season, i.e. sometime in March, somewhere not too far from here (maybe Western Mass/Conn, maybe NH, maybe even Boston area). It's pretty tentative, and we weren't really planning on doing any coaching, more just providing an opportunity for orienteering a lot. But anyways, would this sort of thing qualify for funding? If we were to want money, what kind of proposal would we have to put together? (Honestly, we were planning on a pretty low-budget event, so I don't know that we would even need money, but I was just curious).

-Brendan

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Excellent.

Keep it simple. What you are planning on doing, where, when, who can (or will be encouraged) to come, very simple budget, and how much financial help you're asking for.

And let's see what we can do to get you some funds.

This illustrates also why you jog between intervals on the track :) it gives an excellent forum to talk about orienteering related issues of the day. As Brendan mentioned, neither of us feels fully confident in our abilities as a coach, we just have the desire and the energy to go hang loads of streamers in the woods ( this is what CSU training over memorial day was like). Any chance you'd like to come on board with us and be our director of content?