News
Young Advisor Logan is a member of our Youth Advisory Group, set up on behalf of the Children’s Coaching Collaborative to amplify the voices of young people to shape practice in sports coaching. Here, he shares his experience of the group’s first meeting: a three-day residential at Plas y Brenin in the heart of Eryri National Park.
My name is Logan, I’m 16 and from Harrogate, North Yorkshire. I have played rugby for most of my life, having played for Harrogate Rugby for well over a decade now. At the moment me and other young people are working with StreetGames as part of the Children’s Coaching Collaborative Youth Advisory Group.
Initially I heard about the group as a result of another opportunity I took up with sports, as it was posted on a forum in relation to it, and I applied with the belief my chances would be slim, but if I was invited to join that I could have some impact on sport for young people – something I can relate to greatly as someone who’s done sport for such a long time, and at almost every age.
Whilst in the past I have done a number of things within sport, including volunteering in sport (such as coaching at my school for younger year groups), I have never been involved with a larger group or charity for sport. As a result, this has been largely a new experience for me. I have been on residentials before with my rugby team though, so I had some semblance of an idea of what we might (and what I hoped we would) do. It was what I expected and more, so for that I can only be pleased.
After arriving from the train and waiting for the rest of the group who had late trains (typical public transport!) we immediately got stuck into activities, which definitely helped break the ice for the more nervous ones of the group. That night we all got to know each other a lot better, and had the opportunity to learn more about our roles from a brief from a UNICEF representative, who talked to us about our rights – something that I’d not heard a lot about, other than random news articles, since I was in primary school.
The accommodation was also a key element in the success of the residential in my opinion. It allowed our group to feel independent from the rest of Plas y Brenin and also allowed us to be closer with one another: it felt like our space, which made most of us a lot more comfortable to use it as often as possible, rather than just staying in our rooms – which in turn allowed us to get to know one another better than we might have done otherwise, which is important for a group that needs synergy to operate to its greatest potential.
The next day we spent a lot of time doing coasteering. This was something I had done once before, but no one else in the group had, and I had a lot of fun reliving some past memories and watching the others get to grips with it too. When we got back, we had another session led by our staff, who talked a bit about what we would be doing in the group, our goals and how we would measure our success.
The last day unfortunately came too quickly, and after doing some climbing at the centre, we prepared to go home – saying our goodbyes as we all got on our trains one by one.
All in all, it was a fun trip with a great group of people. I am excited to start doing some work which I really do hope will have the impact we all are striving to create.
