For years the club has talked about having a junior section, but for a number of reasons, like a lack of volunteers, child protection legislation, work etc, etc, nothing has happened. However 12 months ago things began to change when four members of the committee put their names forward to train as coaches and others offered their services as ‘helpers’. All that was required then was the funding to get things underway. And we were lucky, a £1900+ grant secured via RMBC from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust was obtained to cover the cost of coach training, while further funding from the South Yorkshire Police, Tata, the Environment Agency, British Waterways, and Kilnhurst and District AA, allowed us to purchase the equipment and tackle needed to get started.

And now we have four fully qualified Level 2 coaches, a number of helpers, all of whom have been CRB checked, and 10 full sets of tackle, a truly excellent achievement by all concerned considering we were told that it might take 3 years at least to get to this stage.

But now we need your help to decide the next move.

Already we have begun coaching a number of non-member juniors from a local youth club, which has helped iron out some little wrinkles and give everyone some coaching practice, but now would like to hear what you think we ought to be doing for juniors either within the club or to introduce new members to the club.

We would like to hear from dads/mums, granddads and especially from the juniors themselves, what they think.
Should we be showing non-anglers how to fish, increasing the skills of those who already fish, (we have all the tackle required to cover pole, waggler and feeder fishing), providing competitions, or what? Please let us know what you think. You can do so via this forum, by e-mail to webmaster@ravenfieldponds.co.uk, or by phone, committee details are in your permit. Please give contact details such that we can get back to you.

The work commitments of some of our coaches dictate that activities will need to be weekend based, probably Sundays, but that is the only condition at this stage. Of course more helpers, or trained coaches would give greater flexibility, and we are always looking for volunteers who can spare some time, perhaps you can help?