INTRODUCTION

Things just keep going from strength to strength , another great season with lots of good things happening.

SATURDAY COACHING

At the end of the season there were 36 girls and 68 boys booked onto our Saturday junior coaching classes. The ratio of boys to girls has remained constant and to have more than a third of the squads being girls is quite an achievement. At the end of the season we had over 70 kids on the waiting list, wanting to start Saturday squash.

Targets for 2012/2013

• Contact everyone on the waiting list again to let them know their chances of getting into Saturday squash and let them know of other options ( ie individual coaching / holiday courses ) and direct those with little chance of getting into our squads to Jesmond / Tynemouth.

SCHOOL VISITS AND FESTIVALS

Another very successful series of school visits and festivals. Nine schools were visited and 70 kids were invited back to two festivals. 49 attended from the 53 who booked in , and the year 3 after school session filled within 2 days and stayed full all the way through the season.

Each school financed their own school visit and paid a contribution towards the festivals. Gosforth Academy paid for all the advertising leaflets.

Targets for 2012/2013

• Check that the schools are willing to finance their own visit again
• Invite 70 kids to the festivals to achieve the optimal number of 60.
• Request that High school print leaflets again and also develop poster to go up in each of the schools in a prominent place.

DUNLOP SUNDAY CHALLENGE TOURNAMENTS

Dunlop became the new sponsors of these tournaments and they contiue to be an invaluable way of introducing younger kids to the next level of competitive squash. The main squash committee decided that we would be allowed 3 courts for future Sunday challenge tournaments, so we had to reduce the numbers that we invited to our events to 54 ( usually a waiting list of 20+ )

There were 110 kids on the ranking list at the end of the season and 53 are from our club.

Targets for 2012/13

• Encourage the Academy students to help run these events for experience
• Run a small raffle at each event

MIDWEEK GROUPS

Waiting lists or massive demand for all our midweek groups and the level of play is now improving quickly.

Targets for 2012/2013

• Make sure that the best kids are progressed quickly into these excellence sessions and deal sympathetically with those that have to lose their place.

SCHOOL TEAMS

Yet another amazing year for school squash with all five of the Academy teams reaching the national schools finals at Manchester:

• The under 19 girls finished 4th
• The under 15 girls beat Cleve school to become national schools champions.
• The under 15 boys finished 4th
• The under 19 boys were runners up to Millfield school.
• The under 19 boys B team finished 3rd in the trophy finals.

GEMS won the Newcastle junior school cup and Central middle were runners up. Targets for 2012/2013

• Try and qualify four teams from the Academy to the national finals at Manchester again.
• A report has gone to the Academy to encourage them to finance 12 students to do the Sunday morning coaching and take their coaching badges.
• Include the mentoring of a junior as part of the Sunday coaching academy.

ENGLAND SQUASH SANCTIONED TOURNAMENTS

This season we tried running two tournaments , one knockout and one a monrad – both were successful with over 110 entries , although we had to restrict the monrad entries to keep within the squash committees time limit for a second tournament of 5pm. The system of running a raffle with a draw for the juniors who sell £10 worth of tickets is very successful.

Many of our juniors are now playing sanctioned tournaments and this is reflected in the national rankings.

The running of two opens put a lot of strain on Richard and if we can afford to , he would just like to run one event next season.

Targets for 2012/2013

• Book the Northern junior open for a week end close to February half term.
• Have more squash related prizes in the “sellers draw “ to encourage kids to sell tickets

NATIONAL RANKINGS

National rankings continue to be displayed on the balcony and changed monthly. We now have 65 juniors in the National rankings:

                   Boys           Girls  
Under 11            14              5  
Under 13            13              6  					
Under 15             5              5  
Under 17            10              1  
Under 19             5              1  

Targets for 2012/2013

• To maintain 60+ juniors in the national ranking lists during next season.
• Richard to identify those juniors who should be targeting the Silver and gold tournaments to ensure they do not miss entry dates.
• Pay attendance fees for any juniors who are invited to Regional squads.

COUNTY SQUASH

We have 2 County Junior Champions:

Under 11 Girls - Aanya Hamilton
Under 19 Boys  - Cai Younger
	

We also had runners up in:

Under 11 Boys 	- Harry Little
Under 17 Boys 	- Sam Broughton
Under 11 Girls	- Lucy Anderson
Under 15 Girls  - Tegan Younger

The following players represented the County this season:

Under 11s:
Andrew Shipley, Harry Little, Katie Merlane, Naomi Appleby and Beth Tudor

Under 13s:
Tom Cornell, Andrew Shipley, Harry Little, Erin Vitty, Aanya Hamilton, Lucy Anderson and Catriona Watling.

Under 15s:
Michael Mattimore, Josie Barker, Ellie Watling, Tegan Younger

Under 17s:
Alex Robertson, Cai Younger, Michael Mattimore, Tegan Yonger, Josie Barker and Caitling Vitty

Under 19s:
Cai Younger

Targets for 2012/2013

• Encourage juniors to challenge players above them on the county rankings.

JUNIOR TEAMS IN THE ADULT COUNTY LEAGUES

Junior 1st finished comfortably mid table in division 2
Junior 2nd finished a close 3rd in division 4
The junior girls team played the second half of the season in division 2 and comfortably held there own.

Targets for 2012/2013

• Encourage all juniors to buy into the package of playing team squash ie Stay for the food and social and help their team mates inbetween games.

ADULT CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS AND CLUB LEAGUES

This season 11 juniors entered the club championships:

Targets for 2012/2013

• Encourage all the Academy boys and girls squads to enter the club leagues and the club championships for next season.

INDIVIDUAL COACHING

Derek Collins, Liam Gutcher and Matty Hardy continue as the three coaches for individual coaching and they are all busy.

Elliott Carr, Lewis Wake, Josh Askew, Sam Birch Machin, Jack Cornell and Adam Senior all passed their level one as part of the Gosforth coaching academy and they will all progress to do their level 2 next season, along with Anna Watling and Sophie Noble, whose level 2 course was cancelled this season.

Targets for 2012/2013

• Set up individual programmes for the students in the Academy coach scheme and ensure that each student mentors a younger junior.
• Complete and display new coaching poster.
• Ensure Coach licences are completed in 2013/14 season.

JUNIOR MANAGEMENT AND FUNDING

We have an awesome junior committee ( thanks everyone!! ) who work hard to develope the junior section.

Promotion and Marketing	- Elaine Robertson
Funding                 - David Shipley 
Chairperson             - Richard Vitty
Coaching                - Derek Collins
Secretary               - Juliet Birch Machin
Treasurer               - Emma O`Neill
National Rankings       - Dave North
Fund Raising            - Julie Cornell

Targets for 2012/2013

• Encourage all current members to remain on the junior committee and explore suggestions for new members/roles.
• Explore new funding streams

JUNIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS

It was intended that a junior club championships be run at the same time as the full club championships with a new honours board for junior boy and junior girl champion.

Targets for 2012/2013

• Run a junior club championship for boys and girls alongside the full club champs.

CONCLUSION

Probably our strongest ever year , with a lot of highlights :

Our junior teams that play in the county are now firmly established and very competitive. We have enough young players coming through to ensure that they remain so in the coming years.

Gosforth Academy won another national schools championship with the girls in the under 15 category – more justification of our school outreach programme.

Cai younger, Harry Carr and Lewis Wake made the transition into the mens teams and coped admirably.

• We can look forward to new challenges for 2012/13
• Change our cupboard in to a working office.
• Manage the Academy school teams and aim for a repeat of a team reaching the national finals at Manchester in every category.
• Attract more funding to assist juniors with entry fees to E.S Tournaments.
• Encourage juniors to enter the club leagues to prepare them for tournaments and playing for the junior teams

ACCOUNTS

Anyone wishing to see a copy of the accounts for the Junior Development fund can do so by speaking to a member of the Junior Committee.