A.O.C.B 9.2 Coaching– Tom Scott
Head Coach – Henley Tennis Club Director – My Sports Pro Firstly, I wish to thank the committee and all the members at the Club everything which has been achieve has been a collective effort from Chairman Colin for his continued efforts with the Floodlight project as well as The clubs new Lease with Henley College. The committee members have also been a huge support either through recommendations and supporting Colin. The members have been immensely generous with the Hit4Henley fundraiser I know Nomad Project are incredible grateful and I have already seen first hand the impact it has made. In short, the main highlights are: · Junior group program grown from 36 to 98 active players. This excludes the Holiday Camps. The Members have helped substantially via Social Media platform recommendations. · Hit4Henley Charity fundraiser is now over £3,000 including gift aid · Monday Team Night has grown and continues to be successful – a great idea from Club Captain Jeremy · Lockdown 2 Online lessons – Helping to raise over £2000 for Red Day. · 5 Junior County squad members – 2 have represented for competition. · LTA Youth Schools program has now been delivered at 2 schools – Badgemore and Trinity. · LTA Tennis Leaders success · Welcome to Levi to the team who is taking his Coaching Level 1 Adult Program 2020 active group coaching numbers - 36 Current active group coaching numbers - 38 Monday Team Night Men’s Team nights have been very successful with an average of 6-8 players per week. With its popularity we have now taken the session to Cressex allowing 3 or 4 players each week to train through the winter. The standard of play has improved significantly, and I believe this has attracted more players to join the club. Club Night Classes The two evening classes on a Tuesday and Thursday have seen a reduction in the attendance. Reasons could be that previous attendees are now at a standard where they can now comfortably play in the club night sessions and the impact of not having evening light. Once floodlights are installed Evening classes will have to move to another day in the week and perhaps at a later time in the evening. The Ladies Team have now set up their own team practice on a Sunday morning previously the Sunday club morning session. We are already seeing some improvements with the Ladies results. Tom, Natalie and Jessica are determined to get regular ladies team for fixtures as notoriously they have struggled. Mid-week morning classes Thursday morning classes have been a real hit with the lady members with numbers growing from 3 in March to now averaging 6-8 weekly. Unfortunately, we have lost 2 players to injury. There are other sessions on Wednesday and Saturday morning which are not advertised however these have also been well attended. All three sessions accommodate a total of 20 female players the majority of whom performed well in the club championships. 2022 Once our lights are installed in 2022, I would hope more Team players will join Monday team sessions and become the focal point for our team selection. I believe with help with Team captain Jeremy we can create a platform to build and more importantly maintain team attendance. We will look to have effectively two sessions one earlier for B/C team players including those who may represent teams once or twice and a later session for the A team players. I also hope that the Ladies team training on a Sunday morning can become a focal point as we look to build a foundation for the Ladies Team. Introduce a new adult evening session for beginners/improvers as well as the Cardio Tennis session which is yet to be launched. Juniors 2020 active group coaching numbers - 36 Current active group coaching numbers (excluding holiday camps)- 98 Development groups 2021 started positively with many recommendations coming via Social Media. Unfortunately, Lockdown 2.0 hit from 4th January through to 29th March. Momentum was maintained through Tennis at home lessons, delivered Live via social media. The sessions had a good attendance for a small community club. Tom joined up with 14 other National Coaches with a reach of over 1500 schools. Based on the success of the sessions Tom was selected to be one of the headline coaches for the Rose Nose Day Challenge which raised over £2000. Coming out of lockdown group numbers have continue to rise and we are now in a growth phase of development. Where groups weren’t so well attended in 2020, such as the Saturday Red, numbers have risen significantly. In May, Tennis Oxfordshire held a Junior county selection or ‘Festival’. We put 5 children forward from HTC all of whom made county training squads. Of those, 2 made final selection to represent Tennis Oxfordshire for County Cup. The 5 continue to train in the County Squads. Henley College have now re-opened for public hire therefore, I have now taken the Junior program (Red and Orange Groups only) to one of the indoor facilities. This is until our floodlights are installed. Holiday Camps Holiday camps have slowly been improving and have become a fun week for the children with new and imaginative ideas with delivery. Although February half term was in Lockdown Tom delivered Live Tennis at Home lessons using household objects such as a frying pan and rolled up socks. On completion the sessions amassed a view rate of over 700 views. Coming out of Lockdown we headed straight into Easter Holiday Camps which sore approximately 25-30 children per day. Tom enlisted the help of fellow level 4 coach Simon, as well as two assistant coaches to ensure the quality was sustained. June half term continued to sustain high numbers. The summer holiday camps consisted of 7 weeks of 4 day camps with and average of 18 children per day. The content of the camps have now become a revelation with the use of water balloons for serve and volleys attracting good numbers. October half term was another successful camp with 12 children per day over the 4 days. We now look to the Christmas Camps which will run from the 20th-23rd December. Ideas are currently being developed however there will most certainly be a Christmas Theme Schools Following the LTA Youth training in 2020 during the summer term Tom was able to offer 10 hours of free coaching over a 5 week period to Badgemore Primary School and Trinity Primary School. This was very successful as I now look to continue to develop the new relationships with these schools. I will be looking to add Valley Road and Sacred Heart this Summer 2021 ending with a Schools Festival held at the club. Date TBC Junior Teams In October we entered 9 Junior teams in the Oxfordshire National Winter League. Some matches have been postponed. However, of those which have been played our 9U team is currently undefeated. In the new year I look to set up an invitation only Wednesday Night Junior Team session for our more experienced players including county selected children. Charity Hit4Henley was set up in January prior to the second long lockdown. Since coming out of lockdown there have been 89 participants who have generously donated £2585 (£3028 with gift aid) for Nomad Project Henley. After visiting Nomad last month (October) I will be looking to continue the initiative by offering 1-2-1 lessons however this will be via the Nomad Project helping families who need it most. Coach Development Firstly, we said goodbye to Louise a month ago. She has been a valued asset over the years. Louise decided to move to Caversham LTC as it was closer to home and could offer more coaching hours. We are looking to acquire a new coach in the spring however in the meantime, a popular member Levi has started his Level 1 under the mentorship of Tom. Tom also ran the LTA Tennis Leaders course which saw 6 young players put through a 5 day course which focused on their understanding of variations of the game across different age groups and abilities, structure of physical Activity, key skills for on court drills and on court safety and delivery. We have been using two of the participants regularly As part of the LTA License Tom continues to gain credits for his yearly Accreditation. Due to the hours on court Tom has convinced wife Jess to come on board and she will be managing day to day diary, competitions and events at the club. | 
