Grant-A-Week WINNER
Workshop for women cross country ski coaches

Cross Country Canada Women's Committee hosted the fourth annual Women's Coaching workshop in Silver Star, B.C.November 19-21 1999.

This was the first on snow camp and was a very successful weekend. The camp was three days this year and there were 20 participants from 7 divisions, including guest speaker, Beckie Scott, member of the Cross Country National Ski Team.

The dream has become reality and is having an impact on the number of female coaches active in our sport in Canada. This year we had a tremendous amount of financial support and the Women's Committee would like to THANK all the GROUPS that help make this, our largest workshop ever, a success.

CROSS COUNTRY CANADA - coaching development $1000
COACHING ASSOCIATION OF CANADA - for level III coaches $1000
SPORT NOVA SCOTIA - for Sue's travel $800
SPORT MANITOBA - for Kjerstin's travel $300
CAAWS/NIKE GRANT - $100 and for the folders and pamphlets and never ending support of Women in sport.
SPORT BC - for supplying folders and many interesting articles and water bottles.

The workshop started Friday morning at 9am with introductions. The participants come from many divisions and were coaching at every level, Jackrabbits to Masters, beginner instruction to provincial race teams. The enthusiasm of the group was contagious and everyone was eager to share their knowledge and get out on the snow that had arrived overnight. Due to the snow conditions we had to adapt our agenda and go out skiing only once a day for 2-3 hours. This first day we had to take the chair lift up to the top of the mountain where we broke into groups and worked on Skate technique and did some video. We were a very hungry group after we skied back down.

Following a hearty lunch Kjerstin Baldwin, a level III coach from Manitoba, led the session on "Preventing Coaching Burnout." The next session was an open forum to discuss training programs. This group session was so people could share ideas and get help with any specific problems. In retrospect we could have done a better job on this one. There was not enough time to really get into planning a training program. We also ran out of time to do the video analysis as a large group but most group leaders found a few minutes to go over the video within their small groups. The day ended with the Wine and Cheese.

The National Junior and Senior teams and coaches were invited and there was much discussion among the athletes and the participants. A relaxed and enjoyable evening.

Saturday and all is well, it is still snowing! The original plan was to actually give race support at the National Team time trial but it got switched to Friday so instead, we had a group discussion to share our knowledge and ideas on RACE SUPPORT which was led by Sue Hill, a level III coach from NS. There were three retired National team athletes present who shared their race warm up plans with us.

Saturday's ski session was on Classic skis; we broke up into new groups to share around the wealth of knowledge of all our participants. Enough snow had fallen that we could ski right from the village. Two of the groups skied right up to the top of the mountain.

Again we had a late lunch. The afternoon session was on the BALANCED ATHLETE presented by Wendy Davis, a retired National Team athlete. Wendy also shared many of her own experiences as an athlete.

Beckie Scott, National a National Team athlete joined us and gave a presentation on "How Coaches Affected Her as an Athlete." It was a very motivational talk for the many volunteer coaches present to hear how they can affect one individual. The evening ended with a group dinner in Vernon where much more information was shared around the tables.

Sunday dawned sunny and snowy. The first session of the day was WAXING FOR CLASSIC presented by Patti Hogan, a level III coach from Ontario. The day ended with a video session and a free ski up the mountain. Over lunch we ran the video and wrapped up the workshop with Thank You's and evaluations.

Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity contact us