Halesowen Athletics and Cycling Club were celebrating recently when they heard they had won the England Athletics West Midlands regional awards for junior club of the year, club partnership of the year and that one of their members - Maurice Endacott - had won the services to volunteering award.

Junior Club Award

Over the past 12 months Halesowen A & CC have succesfully introduced a new process for the induction of young athletes to the club.  Recognising that the experience offered to young athletes was disjointed and lacked organisation, with no assessment of a childs strengths and weaknesses was carried out, being very much a case of "if you turn up on a Tuesday you'll do Track & Field", the club decided action needed to be taken. 

This time last year the club introduced the Halesowen A & CC "Ready Steady Go Group".  This 4 week introduction to athletics course was designed to give prospective young athletes an insight into the activities of an athletic club.  New athletes and their parents were invited to an induction meeting. They were told they would receive coaching in the 4 basic athletic disciplines, Sprinting, Jumping, Throwing and Endurance and then would take part in a mini competition event (based on QuadKids).

The course has evolved and flourished and has been run on four occasions with over 80 young people taking part. Over 50% of these young athletes have now been successfully integrated into the club's established training squads.

Club Partnership Award

The committee of Halesowen A & CC have worked hard to develop strong links with the local community. The facilities are used by many local schools and colleges on a regular basis.  The club forged strong links with Baskerville School, a special needs school for autistic children.  For the past two years the club have run a six week “introduction to athletics” course culminating in a decathlon style athletic competition where they competed against each other to see who would claim the title of Baskerville School athletic champion and receive a medal and certificate.

The chairman of Halesowen A & CC, Steven Millington, commented “As a club we’ve found this project especially challenging but it has also been a very rewarding experience for our coaches and officials, each week brought fresh challenges for us but it was really the last two weeks where we’ve seen the lads really came alive, the competition element really brought out the best in them.”

Gary Parker, of Baskerville School was very happy with the course - “Over the last six weeks we have watched the students grow in confidence and improve each week. I can speak for all the students and say they thoroughly enjoyed every minute.”

Services to Volunteering Award

Treasurer, Maurice Endercott has been a member of the club for 29 years and has held various appointments: he's been Club Treasurer and Warwickshire County AAA, holds the unofficial title of stadium manager, is the Veteran Team manager, the lead organiser for the Club's 10K multi terrain race for many years, competes in the veteran's T&F league, and also officiates most weekends over the year. He enjoys the upkeep and maintenance of the facility - he's often there 7 days a week cutting the grass around the stadium, refurbishing and cleaning changing rooms and overseeing installation of new equipment, and his intimate knowledge of track certification and the facility itself means the club benefits from him being able to liaise with inspectors and carries out improvements where required.


Congratulations to everyone at the club and we hope they go from strength to strength over the next seasons.

• Halesowen A&CC website
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