January - March 2007
Membership Renewals
All members are reminded that their annual club membership is due for renewal in April. Membership forms are available from the payment desk at training or download here.
Parents of those athletes who are 16 and under also need to be aware that the Athlete Code of Conduct document also has to be signed and returned to the Membership Secretary as a condition of membership.
Please place your completed forms with payment in an envelope marked 'Membership' if returning to the desk at training
County Championships
Entry forms for this years Derbyshire Track and Field Championships are now available to download here or can be picked up from training. The closing date is the 20th April and no late entries will be accepted. Make sure that you qualify by either Derbyshire birth or residence.
Winter to Summer Training Changes
Athletes should note that training on Wednesdays at the Rutland Sports Park is due to change slightly. The last indoor training session for athletes doing fitness work in the middle and top tennis courts is on April 4th. As from April 11th the training will involve event-specific training on the track 7 - 8.30pm. Payment should still be made in the tennis centre.
The middle distance group that has been training on Thursday evenings at Belper will change venue to Shipley Park (Visitor Centre car park). The first session at Shipley Park will be on 12th April, 7 - 8pm.
Try For a Place in the Team
Informal trials for athletes in age groups up to and including U15 will take place during the normal club training session on Saturday 14th April. Events will include sprints, middle distance, jumps and throws, and will help team managers select athletes for early track and field league fixtures.
Good value Spikes.
NEW ADIDAS SPIKES FOR £5.00. 'Sportsworld' at Meadow Lane, Shirebrook, has hundreds of pairs of Adidas Techstar (see picture) running spikes up to Size 6 at £5.00 per pair (up to £30.00 elsewhere).
National Cross Country Championships - Sunderland, Saturday 10th March 2007.
Sunderland's Herrington Park was the venue for this seasons English National Cross Country Championships. Amber Valley runners were well represented in most age groups from U13's to senior men and ladies.
Always the highlight of the cross country calendar its one of those events where the distance running stars of tomorrow, today and yesteryear rub shoulders with hundreds of fellow runners representing their Clubs from all over the country. It was a bright dry day but extremely windy and we have to announce that our familiar Club tent became one of many similar victims. Despite brave attempts at a rescue, it sustained major damage in a particularly strong gust and now has to be considered to be an 'ex-tent' !
A large number of runners, coaches and parents elected to stay Friday night in the nearby Holiday Inn hotel in order to allow our younger runners (who featured in the earlier races) the chance of good nights sleep without the need for an early get up. Well, everyone had an enjoyable evening and hearty breakfast but - as for sleep? Lets just say that certain individuals were not at their most alert on Saturday morning!
There were lots of good individual and team performances with Amber Valley finishing 10th in the team positions in both the U13 boys and U15 girls events. It was good to see Tamara Armoush returning to form in the U15 girls race with 9th place in very strong field. This was probably her best race of the season and hopefully she can carry the confidence that this will have given her forward to the English Schools Championships in 2 weeks time.
Other notable individual performances were Alex Nix (34th) in the U13 boys and Rob Love with a very strong run to finish 47th in the U17 men's 6km event. Need to give special mention to Jerome Richards who having only recently turned 11 was competing in his first 'nationals'.
Full results are available at the following website www.race-results.co.uk/results/2007/natxc07.htm
Alex Turner to train with
Kelly Holmes
Great news for 15 year old Alex Turner is that she has been selected as part of the Norwich Union sponsored 'On Camp with Kelly' scheme aimed at helping to develop the countries top young female middle distance athletes.
Alex was invited to a selection day 2 weeks ago and clearly impressed Kelly enough to be selected as the youngest athlete on the scheme.
Alex will now be part of a small group of girls attending a 10 day training camp lead by Kelly herself at the end of this month at Loughborough University.
Latest Edition of Trackline
The Spring edition of Trackline the official Amber Valley AC Newsletter is now available - click here to download your copy.
Sunday 18th February final match of the sportshall season,
Not a bad turnout for the final match but we could have done with a few more U13 boys and U15 boys. Five of our athletes managed to break and equal some records.
In Match 1 Claudia Rogers equalled the 2 lap
record with a time of 18.60 seconds, in Match 4 Michael Bosworth set a new
record for the 6lap with a time of 60.50 seconds and in Match 3 he set a new
record for the VHJ with a jump of 59. In match 5 Jodie Wills set a new record
for VHJ with a jump of 63, and in Match 6 Emma Komocki set a new record in SB
with 96 jumps, also in this match after much persuasion Rory Chambers agreed to
do the 8lap parlaaf , with Michael Bosworth and between them they set a new
record with a time of 1.19.9 seconds. So a big well done to those five.
Unfortunately we didn't win any trophies this year, but it was close in some of the age groups, U11G only lost by 2 points, U11B 9 points and U15G only lost by 8 points. Well done to Derby who won 4 of the age groups and Chesterfield who won 2, Derby also won the overall trophy with a score of 1851 , Chesterfield came 2nd with 1634 and we came 3rd with 1538.
So once again well done to all of you who took part, hope to see you all next year. There is one group we will not be seeing next year, I would like to say a sad goodbye to Emma Komocki, Claudia Rogers and Charlotte Noonan, this was their final Derbyshire Sportshall League match, they have supported the Sportshall since being in the U11GS. They have represented Derbyshire at the Regionals and the Nationals on many occasions and will be part of the U15G team at this years Nationals.
Level 2 Officials Course
Nottinghamshire AA is running a Level 2 Officials course at Berry Hill Stadium, Mansfield on Sunday 1st April, 10am to 3.30pm.
AVAC urgently needs more people to train to be either a timekeeper, track official or field official. Did you know that the club has to provide officials at all of our club track and field competitions, and that if we don't provide our quota we automatically lose points no matter how good our athletes have been?!
Currently we only have a handful of qualified officials and it is essential for the clubs continued success and future to get more people interested and trained up. It's interesting stuff, it will help you appreciate the different aspects of athletics more, you meet some great people from all over the country and it will help your kids!
You don't have to have done the Level 1 course (although if you have you may already know which out of timekeeping, track or field you are most interested in). The club will pay the course fee provided you are available at some of the clubs or county's competitions. It's not difficult or complicated and you won't be thrown in at the deep end once qualified!
If you think that your child will be competing this year and you'll be traveling with them, why not help them and their club at the same time as seeing them compete? For more information without obligation contact us via email or talk to Julie Feeney at a training session.
It's official ... AVAC really is a great club!
Amber Valley Athletic Club has become the first athletics club in Derbyshire to be awarded the Sport England Clubmark.
Clubmark is a cross sport nationally recognised standard of high quality junior clubs. It specifies minimum operating standards that clubs must achieve to be accredited, which includes child protection and duty of care, quality in coaching, equality and good management.
In the summer, club Treasurer Jane Rogers rose to the challenge of completing the sizeable folder with evidence to support the clubs claim to being a well managed, safe and effective place for young people to take part in athletics. Over several months, for example, she has produced written policies on equity and behaviour, encouraged club officers to attend specific courses, collected the necessary evidence to show competition pathways, athlete development and coaching standards, and reviewed aspects of club management, all with the support of England Athletics East Midlands personnel and ably assisted by several club officers producing some of the necessary text, facts and figures.
The club has used the process to review internal systems and structures, building on its existing strengths, especially important as the club has grown and developed so much in the past year. New and existing parents and athletes can be sure that the club is well managed, striving to offer the best in coaching, competition opportunities and athletic development. Being the first club in the County to gain Club Mark is a big bonus.
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