The Loughborough Lions Story...!

With the 08-09 season not yet finished, the Lions have already had to start planning for next season.  With the continual growth of Loughborough Lions at a rate that is as exciting, the time has come again to start planning for next season.

There are numerous things that have been discussed and plenty of opportunities that are on the horizon as the committee continue to work to establish Loughborough Lions as a major junior developing club in the East Midlands and Nationwide.

This year the Lions have established a strong link with Burleigh College and set up a Junior Program with identifiable 4 levels focusing on providing Volleyball at the right level to all that wish to play.  Currently the Mini-Cubs (U11s) and Cubs (U13s) train 4:30-5:30 on a Friday at Victory Hall in a session that is ran by Charnwood and coached by the Leicestershire Volleyball Community Coach, Eduarda Ferreira.  For more information about this session please contact amy@lionsvc.co.uk.

The next step for a junior player would be to progress through to the Junior Lions Session which is ran at Burleigh College 4:30-6:00 again on Fridays.  This is the point where we are currently looking to focus our recruitment as the purchase of a long net now allows us to split the boys and girls and have 5 mini courts active at the same time!  For more information about this session please contact matt@lionsvc.co.uk.

Just before this session (2:40-4:15) is the College Lions Session, ran by Rebecca Saunders looking at engaging more Burleigh College members in Volleyball and numbers are growing at a great rate for this and plans in place to split this boy and girls in the near future.  A large number of this group trialled out for the Loughborough Lions U18 squad which recently competed in the U18s National Cup.

Following on from the Junior Lions session is the Adult Lions Session, again using the Long net to enable a Men’s and Women’s split.  With a number of Local and Regional League teams coming out of this session this really is the cornerstone of many of the Adult section of the Loughborough Lions Club.  (Men’s Coach – chris@lionsvc.co.uk  Women’s Coach – rach_melvin@hotmail.com)

In addition to this there is now a regular Sitting Volleyball session to enable those with a physical disability to play as well as anyone else who maybe just looking for another volleyball outlet!

So where can we go from here?  What is for sure is that there are plans to work towards the establishment of both Men and Women National League Teams and with the entry deadline for the 09-10 season fast approaching decisions will need to be made in the near future about this.  If you are interested or know of anyone who may be interested in participating in the National Volleyball Division 3 Leagues next year please feel free to speak with matt@lionsvc.co.uk.

Other plans are based around an even bigger push on recruitment.  With the systems and coaches now in place we are calling for the whole club to help make it so all of our junior sessions are filled with noise and excitable young people all sharing the same love as you do for OUR sport.