SSA Club workshops aligning Australian performance pathway

Throughout last week the second round of SSA Club workshops were conducted with six Australian Ski Clubs in attendance.

Australia’s Race Clubs are pivotal in delivering best practices for athletic and sport development. Through the Club workshops SSA is assisting Club development and increasing the capacity to ensure the sport’s high performance programs are delivered in the best possible way.

The workshops incorporate a whole of sport approach to start emphasising the need for developing skills and foundational movements, rather than the current community focus on competition and results.

Clubs gain numerous benefits from the workshops including practical knowledge on how Clubs and SSA can align better in the performance pathway, implementing the SSA Club performance planning and club toolkit, information about SSA pathway providers and a how to guide on conducting skills assessment (Alpine, Snowboard, Freestyle).

Specifically, it assists Clubs with:

• Monitoring and review processes
• Establishing measurable KPI and program aims
• Aligning performance and development strategies
• Education initiatives for the Club community on pathway development
• Assists Clubs to develop their own performance plan

SSA Performance Pathway & Program Manager Ben Wordsworth says the workshops offers Clubs valuable information and insight on how to continue their development specific to their athletes.

“The Club workshops have been a great opportunity for SSA to engage with Clubs and use the opportunity to plan a strategy which better aligns the Club with the performance pathway.

“SSA believes that the foundation of successful athletes starts at Club level, with a need for the collective focus to be on the fundamental skills for athletic development, skills assessment, physical capability, and most importantly identifying talent in the pathway,” he said.

In addition to Ben, multiple SSA Staff were in attendance including Rebecca Clark, Peter Topalovic, Mick Branch, Shawn Fleming and Jason Clauscen.

Support for Australian Race Clubs will be continued through two workshops a year, an SSA club visit in season, continued resourcing around program planning, coach education and mentoring as well as community education forums.

Going forward there is a large focus on Physical literacy and foundational skills. As a framework the Alpine Skill Assessment is being used to develop a Physical Literacy for both Snowboard and Freestyle disciplines with the aim to roll this out in 2019/2020.