When A Plan Comes Together
For those that have been following, the Ontario Disc Sports Association has received a Sports Development Initiative (2006 & 2007) grant and Sports Priority Funding (2008) to teach Ultimate and Disc Golf throughout the province. All in all, a very successful endeavour. We've been surveying the schools and the kids have continued to play since we left. The programs have received an overwhelming stamp of approval and programs will be adopted as part of the curriculum and carried forward in the future.
We know that this will make a difference in your future course and leagues growth. We only hope you embrace it and move it forward....
Moving It Forward
What is the purpose of a PSO - Provincial Sports Organization? One of the key deliverables of the ODSA is to educate the masses. With our RADD Tours, we hope we've made a difference in educating numerous communities about their leagues, courses and offerings available as a new recreation alternative.
We've constantly updated our website on where we've been, what apparatus and tools we left behind to support future play as well as provided an overview of the numbers of students reached and the disc sport taught in each school.
What is left to accomplish is for individual clubs, leagues and courses to embrace these efforts by mentoring these schools and the students. Contact the the schools in your respective area from the information that has been provided (right off the ODSA website, under the schedules sections). We mentioned your leagues and efforts as part of our communication to the schools.
We positioned this program as a Sports Development Initiative or Sports Priority Funding presented by our PSO & local clubs & courses (for example...'presented by ODSA, the local London Ultimate Club (LUC) and the Disc Golf course at St. Julien's Park' in order to highlight the local connection.
We truly hope that you and your club will now take the lead and move this forward. The schools now have the tools, they need local mentors to continue to help build momentum and provide expertise.
You can deliver that to them now!
Vulnerable Sector Screening
As your league or club approaches the important task of establishing a mentoring program with your local schools, remember that a key requirement is to demonstrate that a background check has been performed on all volunteers who will engage with the students. This process is relatively straight forward.
Have your volunteers contact the local police force, let them know that you want to go into schools to teach students about disc sports and that you will require what is called "Vulnerable Sector Screening" VSS in order to prove that your record is clean. Provide the required information and pay the fee, which should be under $30 (clubs should reimburse these fees). It will likely take approximately two weeks for the police force to produce the certified paperwork and you're good to go.
Then contact the identified school contacts, let them know that you're from their local club, course and/or league and that you're following up on the ODSA Disc Sports Tour outreach program and you'd like to continue to mentor the school and the students. Offer to start an Ultimate intramural after- school program, or invite the kids to the local disc course for some additional instruction and play. By mentioning that you have secured VSS documentation, this will go a long way to making the whole process easy. Based on the feedback we've received, the schools will embrace this.
Schools have been given class sets of disc's, practice targets, teaching materials, DVDs and videos. Help them help themselves and reach out to your local community by providing this guidance. It will go along way to growing future participation in your area and only costs the screening fees.
Further if your club is a member of ODSA, then you're a member and fully insured to carry forward programming anywhere in the province. If your club is not a member, contact us and we will work to provide you with necessary insurance coverage.
Remember if you do Move It Forward...Please let us know.
Thanks and Good Luck!
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