As you may know, our club usually hosts an annual track meet in May that has been suspended for the past two years. We are excited to be bringing that competition opportunity back to Kootenay youth this May 7! We desperately need your help, as club parents, to fill volunteer positions required in order to host this meet.

Roles that will need to be filled are: meet registration admin, data entry, tech savvy individuals to be trained to operate/set up the automated timing equipment, event emcee, starter (must fire a starting pistol, so firearms experience required), starter’s assistant/ start line manager, finish line area manager, track officials, head officials for each field event (see following remarks re: officials), athlete manager for each event, information table volunteers, results runners (collect results from event officials and deliver to data entry), event volunteers (i.e. results recorders, rakers for long jump, bar setters for high jump, two measurers for each field. And I am sure there are more roles I am not recalling at the moment. If we get enough volunteers, then we can make shifts and reduce the amount of time volunteers need to be at the track, so please spread the word to grandparents and family friends. It is a long day, but also so fun to see all the kids out there competing in their hometown!

Being a BC Summer Games year, the meet is extra important as it serves as the Zone 1 (Kootenays) trials to make the regional team and head to Prince George this Summer. This usually means an increase in out-of-town participants and overall registrations for the meet. The East Kootenay Track and Field Club will assist somewhat in the Summer Games trials, with regards to specific BC Games reporting requirements, but our club will shoulder most of the load. The trials are for youth who are currently in grades 8 and 9.

If you would be interested in being the chairperson for a Competition Committee, please let me know.

We are working to develop a pool of local certified officials to support hosting track meets here in Trail. I have been applying to municipalities for funding to be able to cover travel costs necessary to become a fully certified track official. The initial step is just an online workshop that familiarizes volunteers with the rules and operating procedures of the various events in track and field. The following step is to complete a specified number of experience hours under a Level 3 official. This second piece will require travel to Kamloops, most likely, as they have many very experienced officials and also offer the most meet opportunities. Currently in our region there is nobody who can supervise the experience component. We also do not have certified officials in this region, so must try to import them from other towns in order to host meets. This becomes quite costly for the club, and makes it cost prohibitive to try to offer other meets here in Trail. I am aiming to build a pool of 20 certified officials over the next five year so that competitions close to home can become a reality. There are a few upcoming meet opportunities where certification could be completed, so please let me know right away if you are willing to pursue this very important role! And of course, spread the word! Find out more about officiating here: https://www.bcathletics.org/Officials/

Another area where we will be looking to develop more capacity is in coaching. As you may know, Coach Kylie and I are the club’s only coaches at this point. This means we can only enroll limited numbers of athletes in our programs, cannot expand programming and doesn’t allow for flexibility if one of us becomes unavailable. If you have previous track and field, coaching or teaching experience then this could be a very rewarding opportunity for you to be involved with youth sport! The NCCP coach pathway for athletics can be found here: https://www.bcathletics.org/Coaches/Education/

As we prepare to move outdoors on April 5, we will be sending out a sign up for parent helpers at practice. With the covid situation still fairly fluid last year, we avoided bringing in parent volunteers to avoid further complications and exposures. It was a lot of work for just the two of us! Now that things are returning to a more normal format, helping hands at practices will be really appreciated. This is especially important for the Junior Development program because volunteers help to minimize wait times and keep practice moving along. Parent helpers help do things like rake and measure for long jump, keep kids organized so the coach can better give individual feedback, help with equipment moving and set up. This is a great way to learn more about the events themselves and is an opportunity to observe the kids in action!

We have been given dates to work at the Trail Legion meat draws one Saturday per month. The Legion generously donates to the club in return for this,and it is a lot of fun! So I hope that parents will take a turn filling one of 3 slots required at each of our assigned draws. Thank you to Cayley, Sarah and Melanie who did our first draw of the year last weekend! Our next Legion meat draw is on April 2, and you can sign up for that and future dates here, using the passcode 368: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f44a4ae22a0fcce9-legion

We would also love to see a parent-led fundraising committee formed! So if you would be interested in leading that, or working on such a committee, please let me know.

Phew! I think that covers all of the volunteering info that we wanted to get out to you all! Officiating is a real priority, so please consider contributing your time to this effort as officials are really the backbone of quality competition opportunities, which our region really lacks.

Thank you all for your support as we look forward to a great outdoor season!