After a pretty intensive summer of training camps and competition the GB squad head off for Antwerp this weekend to prepare for the European zonal championships starting next week. This is the first of the major competitions for the new look squad and they are in good shape and very excited about playing in a major tournament. They play their first game against Austria at 1130 on Tuesday and we all wish them the very best of luck. I will be going out on Sunday to represent GB at the European Assembly and to meet separately with the IWRF to update them on planning for the proposed Wheelchair Rugby World Cup in 2015. Behind the scenes the work continues to build and strengthen our new performance system. We can now welcome Ed Baker as our Strength and Conditioning Coach who comes from EIS and Tom Poulson who joins the team in September as our Physiologist working out of the Peter Harrison Centre at Loughborough. He will be engaged early in our athlete testing and the early work around the development of our talent system. Away from the GB squad a huge amount is going on. The Low Point tournament in Nottingham last week went really well – thank you and congrats to Dave Smart and Tigers who organised the event and to Tigers who came out as winners. This week we have development sessions at Gloucester University where we hope to get lots of new people in chairs and inspire others to take up the game. We have also been in Cardiff meeting with Welsh Disability Sport to talk about how they might help further the development of the game in Wales. A big thank you to Amanda Thomas who is working well to support our clubs there. Another good bit of news is that we achieved our Preliminary Safeguarding Award this week. Ensuring we have a safe environment for all involved in our sport is critical and even more so as we increase the number of children and young people who are playing the game often alongside adults. We have worked hard with the Child Protection in Sport Unit of the NSPCC to achieve this standard which was a condition of our funding awards. We will now be working with the clubs to support them in safeguarding the welfare of children and vulnerable adults in our sport. I also met with Coloplast this week to discuss our partnership and am pleased and grateful that they have again agreed to sponsor us this year for the Coloplast Super Series which starts in October.
Enjoy the Europeans and good luck GB!
David Pond
