Burton AC: England Athletics x Athletics Weekly Club of the Month - November
Introducing our new England Athletics x Athletics Weekly Club of the Month feature.
As one of the oldest athletics clubs in the country, Burton AC has seen lots of success through the years at local, regional, national and international levels.
Breadth and depth of a local athletics club
Burton AC’s club offer has gone from strength to strength, and they provide a fantastic training setup for athletes of all ages. Their foundation group are developing their fundamental movement skills of running, jumping and throwing. Alongside this, the club have a strong endurance section, including a large girls endurance training group who are training for events ranging from 800m to 5km.
Keith Morant, Sprints and Head Horizontal Jumps Coach, oversees the club’s large sprints group and the athletes are making fantastic progress under his support. A number of young athletes from the club have had success at English Schools and some of their athletes are included in the current Junior Talent Programme and Youth Talent Programme cohorts.
Club Support Manager, Rich Ayling, spoke with real enthusiasm after visiting the club.
"The quality of the sprints, hurdles, endurance, youth development and throws coaching was clear to see. I was really impressed with the club’s outlook as well."
Helping people and improving lives
Judy Kelsall, a long-time member, recently won an award for Services to Athletics at our West Midlands Regional Volunteer Awards, and spoke about how much the club has helped her during the highs and lows of her life.
“From a personal level, I lost my husband in 2018, and the support I got from this club was just phenomenal. I don’t know how I would have moved forward without him. That’s why I feel like I always try and keep coming as long as I can.”
Creating a family atmosphere
Club members say that one of the best things about life at Burton AC is the atmosphere created by each other, and that this then leads to success in competition with a real team spirit.
One young club member said:
“The squad as a whole just really get on, it’s very family-like. With the range of ages as well, everyone just looks after each other, everyone wants the best for each other.
Another young club member added:
“There isn’t one time where people feel out of place, I think you all feel like you belong here, that’s the nicest thing. With there being so much of a throws squad, it definitely helps to make it a lot bigger.”
Competition opportunities for the wider community
The club are really committed to developing fun and informal competition opportunities that provide great exposure and opportunities for local people to get involved in our sport.
The club have also thought outside the box and last year held a corporate athletics competition with local businesses entering teams. This enabled them to get the wider local community involved in activities at the club.
Club Chairman, Jaime Walker, said:
"Last year we introduced a corporate sports day, and we ran it like a mini Olympics. We invited businesses to take part - again, it's about creating that revenue stream. The good news about that is that the businesses who came last year have booked again this year. So by opening up revenue streams for us as a club, it's been brilliant for us.
To encourage more people to get involved with volunteering opportunities at the club, they provide attractive incentives. These include reduced membership fees and the provision of high-quality training kit.
Jaime added:
"We're going through a cost-of-living crisis, so by saving money for parents and officials and team managers, we think, 'Right then, if you do a role, if you do a role, we massively reduce the membership down to £40, so it's a fraction of what they would pay, and by doing that, it actively encourages people to take a role at the club."
Collaboration to provide the best facilities
As an England Athletics affiliated track and field club, having access to great facilities for both training and competitions is really important. Burton AC are based out of Shobnall Leisure Complex and are working closely with Everyone Active, who oversee the facility. This collaboration is working hard to sustain and improve the facility with both parties investing in improvements.
Burton AC is our first England Athletics x Athletics Weekly Club of the Month. You can watch the full mini-documentary here.