Just before Christmas the newly formed Hurling Development Committee in the club set their top priority in the short term to provide a long term pathway for Coach education - Coaching our Coaches. The plan set in place was a process to ensure that all coaches involved in all teams had at least completed the Foundation level coaching course and parents would also be encouraged to attend to ensure they had the opportunity to learn and in turn pass on tips to their kids in their field of dreams - their backyard.

Last night in our newly opened arena close on 60 new coaches completed night 1 of the 3 night foundation level course presented by a good friend of the Bridge Peter Casey with excellent insights from Cian O'Dea and Damian Burke. Following a warm welcome from club Chairman Syl O'Connor we had an opening address from Peter where he mentioned how the Foundation level course is constantly evolving so anyone who had completed the course even as recent as 2 years ago would benefit from taking the course again.

Most encouraging from the clubs perspective was the presence of so many new coaches who are interested in helping out in the Juvenile section of the club as well as current players - This coupled with the personal values all coaches present relayed in their feedback means we are all aligned in our end goal - to promote Hurling & Camogie, culture and lifelong participation as a community-based, volunteer-led organization which enriches peoples lives and enriches our community. Following over 2 hours of education all present retired to the foyer of the arena for refreshments and a social chat as we admired the new building and thought about how we would put what we just learnt into practice in our new indoor hurling coliseum.

Night 2 takes place next Monday at 7pm.

If you have already completed the Foundation level course or are in the process of completing you can register for the follow on Level 1 course starting on February 13th which is being hosted by renowned coach educators Paudie Butler and Peter Casey. This is an internal coaching course open to Sixmilebridge Hurling and Camogie coaches only and you can register here:

https://sixmilebridgegaa.com/products/10336/purchases/new