Junior clubs' bid to secure high performance training

The project has been developed by Farnborough, Mavericks, VBDC and Newbury and will begin this summer with trial sessions for male and female volleyball athletes aged 14 to 18.  

A schedule for regular training sessions will follow and be announced in September. 

The programme, called Thames Valley High Performance Training (TVHPT), will be a shared training activity – not a new club in its own right. 

It will, when appropriate, form teams to compete in tournaments, but team members will be eligible to participate only if they are active members in good standing with their home club and are regularly participating in their home club’s activities. 

“Officers from the four clubs realised that, as local clubs, we must have the ability to provide advanced training to our most talented athletes,” said Deborah Pickens, Chair of participating club, VBDC.   

“We must also retain young athletes' loyalty to their "home" club in order to safeguard the growth of grassroots volleyball, and do what we can to help families deal with modern pressures on family economics and finances. 

“The organisers stress that Thames Valley High Performance Training (TVHPT) is not a new club. It is the pooling of the talent and resources of four independent clubs to provide deserving young volleyball athletes with the training and competition opportunities they deserve, while retaining our clubs' identities, independence and their members' loyalty.” 

The four clubs, with a total membership of approximately 350 athletes under the age 18, will provide the seed money for the project in order to address trends in local volleyball that have emerged as youth interest in the sport has exploded. 

The programme is expected to launch in July with trial training sessions. Invitations will soon go out to the four founding clubs’ membership to attend the first trial session. 

The organisers will use the summer sessions to schedule sessions for the season, define athlete eligibility, explore competition opportunities, and build a “rolling” training regime that includes trials at fixed intervals. 

Athletes and their parents from the four clubs will be surveyed to determine the most efficient and equitable way to provide training to top athletes, and what opportunities for competitions and foreign exchanges they would like to have. 

Participation will initially be limited to the founding clubs, but the possibility of expansion has not been ruled out. Leaders from other clubs in the area that want to learn about the programme can request an invitation to observe the sessions. 

While TVHPT is looking for a suitable home venue central to the clubs’ locations, training sessions are also expected to periodically rotate to each others’ home venues to keep costs and travel to a minimum.