With a grant of £1,510 from the William Colton Youth Sport Fund, Leicester Blue Sox baseball and softball club has been able to achieve fantastic growth through the recruitment and training of additional coaches.
The club started by encouraging the parents of existing junior players to take the step up to coaching. They also developed some of the older junior players, who have also now progressed into coaching. With this improved capacity, the club has been able to facilitate a number of new initiatives to help grow participation within the city and county, as well as increasing membership, which exceeded 100 for the first time last season. The majority of the growth was seen in the u10’s programme which now has over 40 players, some of whom have recently been selected for the UK national team that will be competing at a tournament in the Czech Republic in June 2017.
Leicester Blue Sox are one of the fastest growing baseball and softball clubs in the UK. Much of its growth last year is attributable to new projects that were fully or partially funded by the William Colton Youth Sport Fund grant. Selection for the UK national team is a real validation for the quality of coaching that was given a much needed boost last season from the grant award.
“The William Colton Youth Sports fund grant was instrumental in helping Leicester Blue Sox achieve an unprecedented level of growth in participation in baseball and softball across the county, as well as an increase in our members and active coaches at the club. This all coincided with our 10th anniversary year, giving us extra reasons to celebrate come the season end. We look forward to the 2017 season with confidence that the successes of last season can be continue to be built upon.”
To find out more about setting up a fund, please contact Katy Green on 0116 262 4804 or email: katy.green@llrcommunityfoundation.org.uk
