Youth Go Ride Coach & Youth Convenor Opportunities

14 January 2022

Become a Youth Cycling Coach or ERC Youth Convenor........

Become a Cycling Coach or our Youth Convenor in 2022 and tick off one of your New Year's resolutions.

Becoming a coach will help develop cycling and gain an insight into athlete development, and learn things that you can apply to your own cycling. Whatever your interest in cycling you will get something from youth coaching. From the joy of youngsters developing their cycling techniques to the knowledge that you are providing a pathway to greater things. But, not only that, you will garner immense respect from your friends and family. Come and join in.

The club needs to re-build the Go-Ride Sections following the pandemic Edinburgh Road Club - ERC Youth (edinburghrc.co.uk). To do this we must (not quite desperate, but...) grow the numbers of coaches. Pre-pandemic our Go-Ride sessions attracted 50+ riders across the Corstorphine and Inch Park locations, and with a steady turnover of riders we had a good pipeline of new coaches. This enabled us to grow capability and replace those who inevitably 'move on' every year. The pandemic has killed that pipeline, so we can no longer run 2 sets of sessions. This is frustrating as there are over 50 riders on our waiting list.

We do have several initiatives that are starting to bear fruit, but any volunteers would be very welcome. The club has a policy of financially supporting our coaches.

Now, if that weren't enough...

At the end of last year Darina stood down as Youth Convenor after 4-years service, and this position remains vacant. Given the kudos that being a coach gives you, imagine how many more kudos's being the convenor delivers to your kudos platform of choice.

To some degree, like most of the committee roles, the role is what you would want it to be. It is key to ERC continuing to not only develop those few cyclists who can compete at the highest levels, but also pass on skills that'll last the majority a lifetime.

If you are keen to learn more (& who wouldn't be) about either coaching or convenor roles, please contact Alastair Webb (webba1@uk.ibm.com) for more information.