The FA National Football Futures Camp allows 100 young leaders the opportunity to attend a 4 day camp, nominated by their counties young leaders are sent following their commitment to the FF programme, personal development and will to progress football in their communities. The Camp is built up on 2 days of 5 generic workshops then 2 days of specialist workshops - coaching, refereeing or football development.
I want to avoid repeating my 'Leader Life, Leader Legacy ' post from 2 years ago, but with an older brain, experienced body and brighter eyes this will be a set of new thoughts from a sensational experience, which has been 5 of the best days of my life - no exaggeration this time.
The Sunday prior to Camp, The National Game Youth Council (NGYC), National Staff and Young Leader Mentors (YLMs) all met up for a day of training, to get to know each other and iron out any problems before camp started. I think this prep day allowed all involved to start to connect, start to develop the team for the week. Meeting new people is great, working with people who I haven't met before, gaining new ideas and I'd like to think new friends.
Monday 21st July 2014, 85 young leaders descended upon St. George's Park. Young leaders were greeted by the NGYC who couldn't wait to give them a name sticker, take their bags and get into ice breakers. YLMs took the lead on ice breakers and looking after YLs as the final preparations were made for the opening ceremony. My nerves had settled, now just full of excitement.
For the first time in FF history the opening ceremony was opened with a Brazilian themed dance/ music routine, something really different! Michael Ryan then stepped up and delivered an opening speech which really captured the hearts of everyone in the room, 'a journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step.. this is your first step.' With a little help from Kid President [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o ], Lauren O'Sullivan and Luke Baker, The FA National Football Futures Camp 2014 had well and truly begun.
Over Monday and Tuesday our Young Leaders were in 5 generic workshops of coaching, informal football, promoting the game, refereeing and disability football. I was with the amazing group 3 starting off with refereeing being led by Steve Bratt, Anthony Taylor and Mary Harmer - shout out for Mary who was a young leader at camp last year, proving the wonders of Football Futures by returning and tutoring this year!
We started off with a boys table, girls table and staff table.. ooh how things would change. I jumped into the mix with young leaders, brimming with enthusiasm trying to draw people out of their shells.
Within the workshop, young leaders looked at the qualities of a referee, and attempted to draw them.. some odd shaped referees out there! We then went through yellow and red card decisions, offsides and a little bit of confrontation. Before heading outside and putting this into practice. Having the modern use of technology offside decisions were videoed and then reviewed. Borderline penalty decisions were looked at, before a bit of confrontation.
A game which I hadn't seen before but looked pretty good. 1 referee in the middle, everyone around them in a circle. The guys on the outside were to walk into the referee, and 1 person touch the ref, it was then the referee's decision to decide who touched them. With so many people around, and being unable to move it showcased just how difficult it is to make decisions.
Our second workshop was disability football delivered by James Watkins, Lauren Asquith, Dave Tweed and Mickey Chambers. A different spin on your typical disability session, looking directly at amputee football. Dave and Mickey are both international players for the Great British Amputee football team.
If anything the session made me feel a little inadequate, seeing Dave and Mickey playing was incredible. Even with the loss of a limb they can still play their sports to an amazingly high level. It's made me think, what can I do more? How can I progress further?
I had a lot of fun playing amputee football, scoring a volley being the highlight, falling over twice summing up my ability, or lack of. Key messages from James, how can we help to raise the profile of amputee football, can we become scouts and create pathways for people to get involved? The future of the game is only bright if we allow it to be.
Just before tea, we had reflection time - my favourite part of camp when I attended 2 years ago and I don't think that things have changed. Linking up with Rhea West fro Hampshire FA, we seemed to have our work cut out with minimal speaking, people in their shells and not sure of what to say. But it was a start, goals set and tasks for the following day gave us something to work off.
A fantastic first 2 workshops which had Camp buzzing, friendships were already being formed, banter was flying around and the table tennis table was the place to be. I didn't get chance to eat Monday night because I was preparing for the evening activities.
Myself and Jord Guttridge ran The Road to Rio, and fun and interactive evening which has a huge underlying objective of getting Young Leaders to interact, work together and get to know each other.
I'm a firm believer of, if you want people to move out of their comfort zones then you have to be prepared to do so yourself. To begin the evening I sang [badly] in-front of the entire camp, something which I wouldn't dream of ever doing, dressed as a tourist just hours after meeting everyone I was on the front line. Luckily I got the right outcome, a number of laughs and I think that helped to relax everyone; to have a result of, 'If Sarah can sing in front of everyone, then I can do something similar.'
The evening was split into 2, the first task was for each group to create a welcoming routine for their country, which would last 30 seconds, everyone to be included and represent that country. We had some very different ideas, but it was great to see everyone involved.
Task 2, create a new national sport! The game must be brand new, inclusive for at least 8 players and fun. We had the invention of Neymar Kneelers, Ivory Post and a Wheel barrow assault course. All of which took place indoors, minimal kit used but ended up being a lot of fun.
Personally, it was class to have put the evening together and then get the response we did.I loved every minute, watching young leaders work together, mix with others and really fulfilling what Football Futures is all about.
Day 2
Waking up at 6.30am to make sure I was first to breakfast, as I'm not a morning person, this was a task in itself, but getting to sit with our young leaders made it worthwhile.
The sun was out as we went to our first workshop of the day, informal football led by Matt Jones and John Prince. Looking at what initiatives there currently are for young people in football, Mash Ups, Team 16, Team 19, Team 23 and Mars Just Play - already we have a number of informal football offers which young people can tap into.
The session was mainly based around the Football Mash Up programme, what games are played at the moment; empty the net, scenarios, 5 goals 5 ways.. but what games could our young leaders come up with? It turns out that the Mash Up was mashed up to create something new. Small sided games were created which were inclusive, fun and corresponded with the game itself.
Staying outside we went into session 2 , 5-11 coaching led by Skills Coaches - Zoe Rushden and James Lofthouse. The aim of the session was to give an introduction to coaching, how could you tier a session that starts of basic and finishes off just like the game. It was interesting to see different coaches work, how did they embed individual challenges, how were the strugglers and strivers challenged?
The task of the young leaders was to create their own sessions, how could they create a game which could be adapted for everyone to be able to be challenged, so that everyone could enjoy?
I didn't get to see the result of the games which were created, I was in a 1-1 meeting discussing my time on the NGYC so far amongst other agenda items.
The final generic workshop for group 3 was promoting the game, run by Adrian Eyre and Keith Daniel from TMG. Always an eye opening workshop, realising just how many roles there are behind a camera, how many people are needed just to create a small amount of footage. When trying to create a news piece, who do you need?
Task for the afternoon, create a 3 minute piece which is about Football Futures. A very open task, which could have gone in any direction but in fact the 2 groups came up with something similar. Even I was involved as a guest on a chat show!
In a short space of time clips were created, with sign holder, creators, weather men, presenters, guests, script writers, floor directors, time keepers and all sorts! For a last workshop was group 3, we had a lot of fun and I think it surprised a number of people as to how much fun promoting the game can be.
Rolling into reflection time, it was over to the young leaders who played a game of 2 truths and a lie, they wanted to get to know each other more and it worked really well. A very interactive activity which got everyone talking. Followed by an interview task we looked at how we got into Football Futures and some of the things we've done. Compared to day 1 with no-one talking, this session was unbelievable. Everyone interacting talking like they had known each other for ages! Proud moment right there!
Evening activities - The launch of The Football Futures Alumni! A brand new programme for previous young leaders to get involved, re-connect, give back and continue their Football Futures Journey. We had our 5 founding members around for the evening delivering the workshops: Matt Dandy, Lauren O' Sullivan, Laura Danskin, Prathiv Kholia and Ted Grizzell. The evenign was led by Lauren Asquith and Matt Dandy.
Broken into 2 workshops we had, employability skills and promoting the Alumni. The employability skills looked at what behaviours do employers look for? What is important, how can we promote ourselves and write applications effectively?
In the other workshop we had a look at the benefits of the Alumni Programme, why should it be created? The task was to create a 30 second video promoting the programme and it's benefits.
Finishing with a Q & A with out founding members, the Alumni was launched, now to watch it grow. The key messages to come from our founding members were:
Ted Grizzell - Be different of be better.
Prathiv Kholia - Find yourself a mentor and reflect on your opportunities.
Laura Danskin - You're never to young to guide others.
Day 3
Back up early for the breakfast club!
The start of the specialist workshops, we had coaching with Matt Craddock, Stephen Healy and Dan Greenhough and Refereeing with Marc Birkett and Roger Vaughan.
I was with the Football Development guys led by Karl Lines - CEO of British Colleges Sport and Brian Goodwin National Development Officer from English Colleges FA.
The workshop started with the question, What if?
Dare yourself to dream about what you could do to develop football in you community, county or even in the country. What is it that you could do? What is your dream? How are you going to get there?
First job for the day - write down your dream. Sky is the limit - where do you want to go? What do you want to do?
After looking at the launch of Team 19, the group were then told they would be delivering a festival to the whole camp Thursday afternoon, a daunting task? Not for our fearless young leaders who were pumped on adrenalin after sharing their favourite moments.
We first had to decide our vision and values, something thought to be easy.. but it wasn't. After a staff intervention to try and decide the values, we didn't get any further. The young leaders got up and moved away from us to decide what they were going to have as their values and vision. 30 minutes later, they had made their decisions.
Vision: Enjoyed by everyone, Remembered by All, Inspired by You.
Values: Inspiration, Fun, Trust, Respect, Inclusive.
With the values and vision sorted, the group could move onto thinking about what they festival could and should look like. What will happen? What off pitch activities will there be? What roles will people have?
Refining things down even further, what do we actually need, what will be used as our base to build off?
Final reflection session of the week, a quick run through of the week, thoughts on the day and what we have learnt during the week. An emotional time after working with the guys, seeing how much they've developed and knowing that Camp was drawing to a close.
Evening activities - the summer ball run by Kieren Laverick, Harry Organ and Lindsey Whitton. Everyone got their smart clothes on for our fund raising raffle, quiz and disco. A massive thank you to everyone who donated to the Teenage Cancer Trust, over £922 was raised on the night, which is huge. Spain won the quiz, before we all tried to throw some shapes on the dance floor. A fantastic evening, 85 young leaders who hadn't met each other on Monday were partying hard by Thursday. A personal highlight, leading the dance routine to my favourite disco song - Reach by S Club 7.. it's fair to say I smashed it!
A top evening of selfies, bad dancing and emotions. Twitter erupted after we finished, the tweets were fantastic to read.
Day 4
Again I was up early, staying true to form. Already I was filling up with emotion, last day blues.
I started off in the development workshop, their first job for the day was to create their roles for their festival.. another team circle with no adults! The group were split into task groups which also had a senior management team who were to over see the event.
With the planning from the day before, the team headed down to the futsal hall to start setting up for the event, goals were moved, signs were made, prizes were out, banners constructed - everything seemed to fall into place. It was amazing to watch the guys setting things up, taking control of their own event.. really showing the power of young people.
A quick lunch followed by final preparations, the festival was ready to go. There was a cross bar challenge corner, mash up pitch, 2 competition pitches, selfie competition and comments walls. Everything was going on, young leaders signed in and the afternoon got cracking.
Being able to sit back and just enjoy the festival was incredible, just thinking through the week, thinking of individual personal journeys.. I must have looked like the Cheshire Cat with a stupid smile across my face, but it really was a pleasure to watch and be a part of.
Only 1 thing left, the closing ceremony. Delivered by Lauren Asquith and Dan Leggett, we heard from Steve Swallow and Adam Herczeg - key messages of what next? Don't be scared to take that first step even if you cant see the whole stair case. Some things will go really well other things wont, it's now up to you guys as young leaders to take ownership of your journey and what happens in your communities.
I ended up in tears, but I was told that shows how much you care. An emotional week, overwhelming to have been a part of it all and have to power to influence others.
'You don't have to be pushed to grow. A plant grows through the right elements, not by being pulled out of the ground.' Sarah Nickless, FFCamp 2014
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