Camp success for Young Leaders

One hundred and three Young Leaders from across the Country descended upon Walsall Campus of the University of Wolverhampton last month for The FA National Leadership and Volunteering Camp 2010.

Every County FA was asked to nominate their two most promising young leaders (one male, one female), aged 16-17 years old to attend the camp. Nominations were also received from some of The FA Leadership and Volunteering Programme’s partners – British Colleges Sport, Independent Schools FA and BBC Your Game.

During the week, ten workshops were delivered, each with the focus on leadership, giving them the opportunity to develop their leadership skills in different settings. The workshops delivered included refereeing, Futsal, 5-11 Skills Coaching, working with the media and equality. This was complimented by a comprehensive evening activities programme, a careers afternoon and a football festival on the final morning.

The programme was designed by a management team, made up from young leaders who attended the camp in 2009. Since January, they attended monthly meetings at Wembley, and were tasked with making many of the key decisions as to how the camp would look and feel.

Amy Fisher, from Berks and Bucks FA was part of the team, and said: “Being part of the management team has been an amazing experience. It has been challenging, but very rewarding. We all feel like we have been part of something very special, and we really feel like we have had ownership over how we wanted the camp to be.”

The FA’s Education Project Officer, Steve Swallow, who has responsibility for The FA’s Leadership and Volunteering Programme Nationally added: “The camp has been a huge success. For the first time this year, every Young Leader has left the camp with an individual assessment, which will be sent back to their County FA and used to formulate a personal development plan for the Young Leader.

“It has been a very humbling experience watching 103 Young Leaders come together from different backgrounds and develop through the week. The FA is committed to developing a skilled volunteer and paid workforce. This camp will go a long way to ensuring that we achieve that goal. We are now seeing several young people come through this programme and gain full-time employment within football. Many of the staff that worked on camp this year have also graduated through the programme.”

The guest of honour from the final day was Howard Webb, who attended less than a week after refereeing the World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands. Howard gave the Young Leaders an insight to his career, all the way back to the time when he took up the whistle as a 16-year-old, and his World Cup experiences. On closing, he said: “Coming here today has reassured me that football in this country is in safe hands.”