Centre of Excellence scheme

One of our objectives is to increase the standard and profile of volleyball in the UK.  We believe a way to do this is to build on our success in National League and on our history of development by making Malory Eagles a centre of excellence for volleyball.  As well as providing an exceptional playing environment, we want to provide stimulating personal development opportunities so the scheme will work on improving our volunteer capacity as well as our playing ability.

Currently, most of our volunteers are also players.  This is sustainable with a club of our size but we do want to provide opportunities for those in our community that cannot or do not wish to play volleyball.  In addition, the current media outlets that we have (eg our web site and local papers), the variety of our administrative and technical activities and the environment of volleyball performance within the club provide really very good opportunities to develop specific experience (eg journalism) and general life skills (eg organisation).

This scheme will put in place the systems, processes and equipment required to facilitate our new performance and volunteering programmes.  We expect the scheme to achieve…

• Improved understanding of volleyball performance through statistical analysis
• More accessible volunteering roles
• Volunteering roles providing real, personal development
• Improved ability to attract volleyball talent
• Improved individual & team performance

Specifically, the scheme should deliver the following support for volunteer reporters, photographers, video analysts, match analysts and team secretaries.

• Fixture management system to support administration
• Match reporting equipment to support the promotion of volleyball
• Playing analysis system to support performance improvement
• Screening and enhancement programme to support talent development

We think this is a really bold and exciting scheme and we’re determined to see it through to delivery.  As with most things, the scheme will cost so we’re looking at grant funding to allow us to achieve these ambitions.

We’ll update you with progress on funding and preparation in due course but in the meantime, let us know what you think.