Female and Junior Development Programme

Aim

To enable the club to offer tailored sessions to develop and promote Junior and Female participation and promote healthy lifestyles

Club Background

The club has existed in the village of Garvagh for over 5 years, originally started as a merely a fun recreational activity in the local sport centre by 3 current members of the club who previously played Volleyball in their younger years, the club grew dramatically in year 2 with members ranging from 18 years to over 50 years of age and the inclusion of a male team in the N.I Volleyball league. Year 3 saw the addition of a female team in the N.I Volleyball league made up mostly from females who until joining the club had never played the sport before, year 4 saw the club secure its first silverware with the male team winning the N.I Division 1. Our 5th season promised so much with the men on the verge of retaining their title and the ladies progressing with each game played until Covid-19 hit and subsequent closure of indoor sport for 18 months. 

Covid-19 Recovery

We will use this funding to help recover from inactivity over the past 18 months due to Covid-19, like many indoor sports due to the length of time away from sport and participating, numbers have dwindled since our return to the court in September 2021. We no longer find ourselves in a self sustaining position and as a result can not cover the additional programmes such as female only and junior sessions due to financial restrictions and lack of membership income. This fund will be used to generate extra sessions that we can not currently offer to attract these new members and ultimately strengthen our volleyball programme focusing on participation and leading to competitive competition for those that wish to progress to this level in the rural setting of Garvagh.  

The Project 

 
We plan to run weekly sessions for Juniors and Female Adults to increase participation levels within the club, due to inactivity over the past 18 months we have seen our numbers deplete severely, due to lack of numbers the club can not provide these new alternative sessions due to lack of funds within the club, this project will not only introduce more people to volleyball into Garvagh Phoenix but also increase the participation levels of people in the area and ultimately strengthen volleyball in the area and offer exit routes from school to club level.

How the Fund will be used

This funding will allow us to add an additional court time at the Jim Watt Centre, Garvagh, as a result we can expose new members and help everyone develop the sufficient skills associated with Volleyball. Currently the only session the club are capable of running is team training one night a week, given the nature of this training it is almost impossible to accept new members who require coaching at a more basic level to enable learning. Extra court time comes at extra cost to the club at time when money is very tight due to 18 months of inactivity so we are currently unable to offer this development programme. 

 
Providing these age/gender focused sessions  we will be able to attract new members to the club by attending sessions that will be targeted solely to learn and develop in the sport and progress to a point they can represent the club in the Northern Ireland league in the future.Since resuming training we have saw our membership half,we will use this funding to not only help our membership recover but ultimately grow on time so the club can return to its self sustainable position.

By expanding the club sessions to allow for newcomers to join and learn the sport we also offer a vital community service by giving under 18's in the village a club to join and all the benefits of that being part of a club can help promote such as teamwork, community spirit and pride in representing their village/area.

Our members get so much from the sport not just the health benefits of physical activity but the social side means a lot to people, given the past months and lockdowns we have endured this social aspect is more important now than ever before. We hope that this fund will allow us to offer more opportunities to junior players and females in the area and ultimately see the club return to pre-covid membership levels. 

This project successfully funded on 29th December 2021