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Polo Management Group’s spring newsletter is out - April 4, 2017
We are delighted to bring the first edition of the Water Polo Management Group’s WPMG News to you, drafted by the members of your WPMG led by Chair, Ian Elliot.
Welcome to our first edition of WPMG News!
Swim England’s (previously ASA) Water Polo Management Group has a mandate to strategically develop our sport in England. We are aware that until now, our communications strategy to stakeholders has been insufficient, and we hope that the commitment to regularly publishing updates through this medium will allow us to share the significant ground work we have done to date, and share our vision for the future.
The last two years has seen some pretty significant changes to the water polo development structure at national level. The previous structure based around talent camps in Cardiff 6/8 times per annum simply didn’t work: we have seen no progress in terms of men’s age group squads qualifying for the European Championships in the last 10 years and the women’s results have shown little, if any, progress. Furthermore, despite all the investment, we have seen numerous athletes dropping out of the sport before they’ve even reached a European cycle or immediately afterwards. Change had to happen within the development pathway and we need a senior programme for all our athletes to aspire to.
Effecting change though is always difficult as we are all involved in the sport of water polo as volunteers and the vast majority of us have full time jobs. Everyone wants change to happen immediately and wants results and success now. This is simply not going to happen: this is a mid-long term project with the hard work starting now and with little short term reward. Whether we have adopted the right approach will only be clear years from now. What we do know is that carrying on doing what we did was not an option.
Through the Water Polo Management Group, we have created a simple and clear vision for the pathway. We have been ambitious and want to see Great Britain competing with a senior men’s and women’s team in European competition by the end of the decade. To achieve this, we need to produce more competent athletes physically, mentally, technically and tactically. They need to be exposed to better training opportunities, better competition experiences, both domestically and internationally, and need to commit to their sport. And all this with very little funding…
Finance
image credit Sport England
We are all aware of the financial challenge we face as a sport. The WPMG has taken the stance that we need to find new and innovative ways to work within the budgets we are allocated, in order that we can produce and sustain a coherent strategy for the development of the sport in England.
Our ambitious development strategy for water polo has begun to be outlined in this newsletter, developed prior to the recent announcement around funding. We were awaiting official allocation of our new budget for the next financial year, which we had hoped would allow us to make good our commitment to the sustainable growth of our sport.
Although we believe we had submitted the most robust and fully costed strategic plans for water polo for our share of Sport England funding, we have now had some disappointing news which has only recently been officially released to us.
Effectively we will be receiving a massively reduced sum, designed as a parachute for this financial year, with no further Sport England funding. We will be working with Swim England to establish what their vision is for the future of water polo and how we access alternative funding streams. This work has begun immediately, but with recent executive re-organisation at Swim England, it is unlikely to develop in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, the WPMG has made the decision to continue as planned until the future is clearer.
We are more acutely aware of the need for the water polo community to work with us to identify potential alternative funding streams.
Parental / athlete contributions have been an essential component of funding National Squad training and competition. As part of our financial strategy, Mark Ray (Water Polo Management Group) has developed platforms to help supplement parental contributions with social and corporate support. Our colleagues in the Swimming Trust have been a great assistance, and we have been utilizing a crowdfunding site (Pledgesports) to raise squad funding in order to help reduce the parental / athlete funding burden.
Now these platforms are there, we believe the athletes’ families and the water polo community at large can harness their contacts to help support our National Teams.
Despite the challenges from some parts, the vast majority of people have been supportive of the changes and we have had some pretty significant achievements in a relatively short time frame.
Regional Academy
We have seen that there is support available through our regions when it is part of a coherent plan. The previous weekly RTC system was effectively twenty “clubs” scattered around the country. It is very difficult for a national programme to drive a coherent development plan across twenty sites and to quality assure delivery and output, particularly when this is a programme entirely supported by volunteers. The clubs and the coaches in each area will continue the fantastic work they have done for years introducing children to the sport. However, to drive improvement and raise standards, it is essential that the best athletes in each of our eight regions come together within that region to train and compete against each other. The twenty RTCs have been replaced by monthly Regional Academy sessions when the best from across our eight regions will train together. The best athletes from these sessions will then be selected for a Regional Academy competition.
Regional Academy Competition
Three times per annum, the best athletes from each region will come together to compete in a Regional Academy competition. The majority of these athletes will be from the age groups 3 and 4 years out from European competition. The athletes will be taken out of their comfort zone and assessed by the Head National Academy Coach. The best thirty athletes will be invited to the National Academy training camps but this squad will remain fluid with players added or removed based on performance.
National Academy
Two years out from competition, a group of around thirty athletes will be identified from the Regional Academy Competition. These athletes will be invited to the National Academy and will work with the Head National Academy Coach to develop based on their individual needs. This will NOT be a National Squad per se but an opportunity for these athletes to show their commitment to improvement and development over a two year period. Athletes will be given individual and measureable targets which will be reviewed at quarterly National Academy Camps.
National Squads
Any sport needs a national squad programme to aspire to. The vast majority of athletes across the country will never get the chance to play international water polo but the opportunity must exist for them and it must exist at all levels. All athletes will get the opportunity to compete in age group competition at Under 17 or Under 19 level and this year we have reintroduced a senior programme which is long overdue for athletes exiting the age group programme.
Two years prior to a competition, a National Squad of c 20 athletes will be selected to prepare for competition. These squads will meet approximately once per month and more frequently in the lead into competition. They will be supported in terms of their strength and conditioning, medical and sports psychology needs and will receive education around anti-doping, nutrition and social media use.
Since UK Sport funding was stopped post-2012, no senior opportunity has existed but, for the first time, we will be sending a senior men’s and a senior women’s squad to the EU Nations this year. For absolute clarity, the team that is heading to both of these competitions is the England team! We have received a number of questions around selection and we have been very clear that we’re looking to select a young team of committed athletes prepared to engage in a long term programme rather than select athletes based on the fact that they’ve been in the programme previously. Everyone is available and selection will be entirely for the Head Coach and his team but we’re looking for athletes prepared to commit to the future. The vast majority of these athletes will be heading to Chinese Taipei for the World University Games in August 2017 – another fantastic development opportunity. As I have said above, our expectations need to be realistic; we don’t know how we’ll perform on these international stages but unless we are there and experiencing this level of competition for athletes and coaches, we’ll never know what is required! Wherever we finish, we’ll have a more experienced group of athletes coming out of this.
National Training Centre.
Manchester leading the way
Prior to 2012, Manchester was the training venue for our competition squads. Despite the withdrawal of funding, Manchester City Council and the City of Manchester Water Polo Club have remained committed to supporting the national programme. Julie Allsop and the Manchester Club, in particular, have done their utmost to ensure that opportunities remained for the national squads and this has been crucial in the continuation of the programme. Manchester City Council has continued to be supportive of water polo and we have recently reached agreement with them to secure training opportunities for the next two years. This will guarantee pool training at the East Manchester Leisure Centre and the Manchester Aquatic Centre but will also give us access to the genuinely world class, Manchester Institute of Health and Performance, a new facility in East Manchester which creates a world class environment in health and performance.
Furthermore, Manchester is committed to supporting water polo with a long term events programme which helps us grow the profile of the sport. This will begin with our successful application to host the European Junior Men’s Qualification event in May this year.
Staffing
Water polo has been blessed with passionate coaches committing to the development of athletes and supporting the 6 national squads. It is essential that these coaches are supported through coach development opportunities and Sarah Dunsbee (Water Polo Management Group) is currently creating a CPD programme which will be based on individual needs. In addition though, to develop more complete athletes, we need to expand the support mechanisms and we now have 4 physiotherapists, 3 sports psychologists, 5 strength and conditioning coaches and a nutritionist working with the squads. The vast majority of these are young, keen professionals who want to further develop their careers and water polo will benefit greatly from this. It is a testament to all these individuals that they all work as volunteers. The sport isn’t big enough or sufficiently wealthy to be paying any coaches or support staff.
Calendar.
The most common complaints that the Water Polo Management Group receives is around conflicts within the calendar. This year has seen a concerted push to try and provide some clarity around the scheduling of events and camps. We have had fantastic support from the British Water Polo League in identifying men/women only weekends so that international camps can be scheduled without conflict. The calendar is due to be published soon, and will provide us with a clear plan through to May 2018. This will continue to be developed on a rolling basis to provide certainty.
Communications.
We have begun to develop a communications strategy, which we hope will enhance communications throughout the sport. Some elements of this are now in place: This newsletter being the first, and soon to follow, we plan to release a bi-monthly athlete newsletter for participants in the National Programs.
We hope we will be able to build our communications strategy with the use of more reactive platforms, such as enhanced use of social and web-based media.
Mark Ray
1/4/17
One response to “Polo Management Group’s spring newsletter is out”
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Latest News
Polo Management Group’s spring newsletter is out -
We are delighted to bring the first edition of the Water Polo Management Group’s WPMG News to you, drafted by the members of your WPMG led by Chair, Ian Elliot.
Welcome to our first edition of WPMG News!
Swim England’s (previously ASA) Water Polo Management Group has a mandate to strategically develop our sport in England. We are aware that until now, our communications strategy to stakeholders has been insufficient, and we hope that the commitment to regularly publishing updates through this medium will allow us to share the significant ground work we have done to date, and share our vision for the future.
The last two years has seen some pretty significant changes to the water polo development structure at national level. The previous structure based around talent camps in Cardiff 6/8 times per annum simply didn’t work: we have seen no progress in terms of men’s age group squads qualifying for the European Championships in the last 10 years and the women’s results have shown little, if any, progress. Furthermore, despite all the investment, we have seen numerous athletes dropping out of the sport before they’ve even reached a European cycle or immediately afterwards. Change had to happen within the development pathway and we need a senior programme for all our athletes to aspire to.
Effecting change though is always difficult as we are all involved in the sport of water polo as volunteers and the vast majority of us have full time jobs. Everyone wants change to happen immediately and wants results and success now. This is simply not going to happen: this is a mid-long term project with the hard work starting now and with little short term reward. Whether we have adopted the right approach will only be clear years from now. What we do know is that carrying on doing what we did was not an option.
Through the Water Polo Management Group, we have created a simple and clear vision for the pathway. We have been ambitious and want to see Great Britain competing with a senior men’s and women’s team in European competition by the end of the decade. To achieve this, we need to produce more competent athletes physically, mentally, technically and tactically. They need to be exposed to better training opportunities, better competition experiences, both domestically and internationally, and need to commit to their sport. And all this with very little funding…
Finance
image credit Sport England
We are all aware of the financial challenge we face as a sport. The WPMG has taken the stance that we need to find new and innovative ways to work within the budgets we are allocated, in order that we can produce and sustain a coherent strategy for the development of the sport in England.
Our ambitious development strategy for water polo has begun to be outlined in this newsletter, developed prior to the recent announcement around funding. We were awaiting official allocation of our new budget for the next financial year, which we had hoped would allow us to make good our commitment to the sustainable growth of our sport.
Although we believe we had submitted the most robust and fully costed strategic plans for water polo for our share of Sport England funding, we have now had some disappointing news which has only recently been officially released to us.
Effectively we will be receiving a massively reduced sum, designed as a parachute for this financial year, with no further Sport England funding. We will be working with Swim England to establish what their vision is for the future of water polo and how we access alternative funding streams. This work has begun immediately, but with recent executive re-organisation at Swim England, it is unlikely to develop in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, the WPMG has made the decision to continue as planned until the future is clearer.
We are more acutely aware of the need for the water polo community to work with us to identify potential alternative funding streams.
Parental / athlete contributions have been an essential component of funding National Squad training and competition. As part of our financial strategy, Mark Ray (Water Polo Management Group) has developed platforms to help supplement parental contributions with social and corporate support. Our colleagues in the Swimming Trust have been a great assistance, and we have been utilizing a crowdfunding site (Pledgesports) to raise squad funding in order to help reduce the parental / athlete funding burden.
Now these platforms are there, we believe the athletes’ families and the water polo community at large can harness their contacts to help support our National Teams.
Despite the challenges from some parts, the vast majority of people have been supportive of the changes and we have had some pretty significant achievements in a relatively short time frame.
Regional Academy
We have seen that there is support available through our regions when it is part of a coherent plan. The previous weekly RTC system was effectively twenty “clubs” scattered around the country. It is very difficult for a national programme to drive a coherent development plan across twenty sites and to quality assure delivery and output, particularly when this is a programme entirely supported by volunteers. The clubs and the coaches in each area will continue the fantastic work they have done for years introducing children to the sport. However, to drive improvement and raise standards, it is essential that the best athletes in each of our eight regions come together within that region to train and compete against each other. The twenty RTCs have been replaced by monthly Regional Academy sessions when the best from across our eight regions will train together. The best athletes from these sessions will then be selected for a Regional Academy competition.
Regional Academy Competition
Three times per annum, the best athletes from each region will come together to compete in a Regional Academy competition. The majority of these athletes will be from the age groups 3 and 4 years out from European competition. The athletes will be taken out of their comfort zone and assessed by the Head National Academy Coach. The best thirty athletes will be invited to the National Academy training camps but this squad will remain fluid with players added or removed based on performance.
National Academy
Two years out from competition, a group of around thirty athletes will be identified from the Regional Academy Competition. These athletes will be invited to the National Academy and will work with the Head National Academy Coach to develop based on their individual needs. This will NOT be a National Squad per se but an opportunity for these athletes to show their commitment to improvement and development over a two year period. Athletes will be given individual and measureable targets which will be reviewed at quarterly National Academy Camps.
National Squads
Any sport needs a national squad programme to aspire to. The vast majority of athletes across the country will never get the chance to play international water polo but the opportunity must exist for them and it must exist at all levels. All athletes will get the opportunity to compete in age group competition at Under 17 or Under 19 level and this year we have reintroduced a senior programme which is long overdue for athletes exiting the age group programme.
Two years prior to a competition, a National Squad of c 20 athletes will be selected to prepare for competition. These squads will meet approximately once per month and more frequently in the lead into competition. They will be supported in terms of their strength and conditioning, medical and sports psychology needs and will receive education around anti-doping, nutrition and social media use.
Since UK Sport funding was stopped post-2012, no senior opportunity has existed but, for the first time, we will be sending a senior men’s and a senior women’s squad to the EU Nations this year. For absolute clarity, the team that is heading to both of these competitions is the England team! We have received a number of questions around selection and we have been very clear that we’re looking to select a young team of committed athletes prepared to engage in a long term programme rather than select athletes based on the fact that they’ve been in the programme previously. Everyone is available and selection will be entirely for the Head Coach and his team but we’re looking for athletes prepared to commit to the future. The vast majority of these athletes will be heading to Chinese Taipei for the World University Games in August 2017 – another fantastic development opportunity. As I have said above, our expectations need to be realistic; we don’t know how we’ll perform on these international stages but unless we are there and experiencing this level of competition for athletes and coaches, we’ll never know what is required! Wherever we finish, we’ll have a more experienced group of athletes coming out of this.
National Training Centre.
Manchester leading the way
Prior to 2012, Manchester was the training venue for our competition squads. Despite the withdrawal of funding, Manchester City Council and the City of Manchester Water Polo Club have remained committed to supporting the national programme. Julie Allsop and the Manchester Club, in particular, have done their utmost to ensure that opportunities remained for the national squads and this has been crucial in the continuation of the programme. Manchester City Council has continued to be supportive of water polo and we have recently reached agreement with them to secure training opportunities for the next two years. This will guarantee pool training at the East Manchester Leisure Centre and the Manchester Aquatic Centre but will also give us access to the genuinely world class, Manchester Institute of Health and Performance, a new facility in East Manchester which creates a world class environment in health and performance.
Furthermore, Manchester is committed to supporting water polo with a long term events programme which helps us grow the profile of the sport. This will begin with our successful application to host the European Junior Men’s Qualification event in May this year.
Staffing
Water polo has been blessed with passionate coaches committing to the development of athletes and supporting the 6 national squads. It is essential that these coaches are supported through coach development opportunities and Sarah Dunsbee (Water Polo Management Group) is currently creating a CPD programme which will be based on individual needs. In addition though, to develop more complete athletes, we need to expand the support mechanisms and we now have 4 physiotherapists, 3 sports psychologists, 5 strength and conditioning coaches and a nutritionist working with the squads. The vast majority of these are young, keen professionals who want to further develop their careers and water polo will benefit greatly from this. It is a testament to all these individuals that they all work as volunteers. The sport isn’t big enough or sufficiently wealthy to be paying any coaches or support staff.
Calendar.
The most common complaints that the Water Polo Management Group receives is around conflicts within the calendar. This year has seen a concerted push to try and provide some clarity around the scheduling of events and camps. We have had fantastic support from the British Water Polo League in identifying men/women only weekends so that international camps can be scheduled without conflict. The calendar is due to be published soon, and will provide us with a clear plan through to May 2018. This will continue to be developed on a rolling basis to provide certainty.
Communications.
We have begun to develop a communications strategy, which we hope will enhance communications throughout the sport. Some elements of this are now in place: This newsletter being the first, and soon to follow, we plan to release a bi-monthly athlete newsletter for participants in the National Programs.
We hope we will be able to build our communications strategy with the use of more reactive platforms, such as enhanced use of social and web-based media.
Mark Ray
1/4/17
One response to “Polo Management Group’s spring newsletter is out”
-
Christine Whittaker says:
Thanks for this very comprehensive update. Given the recent disappointing announcement about funding the whole water polo community must work together to maximise opportunities for all players. I am really glad to know that the calendar for 2018 will be less of a logistical nightmare than 2017 is proving to be.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Thanks for this very comprehensive update. Given the recent disappointing announcement about funding the whole water polo community must work together to maximise opportunities for all players. I am really glad to know that the calendar for 2018 will be less of a logistical nightmare than 2017 is proving to be.