Junior polo in the Netherlands

[ErikV]

But another question,
Does Keistad have juniors in a age of 10-14?
Because i'am looking for clubs with juniors of that age.

We just started with a team, and i hope that there are more teams with juniors of that age. So we can start juniors tournaments in the Netherlands.

greetings from Erik Veenje
a member of the first canoepolo team in Limburg

Ps. if you know a clubs with with a junior team, please let me know

[Martijn]

I'm afraid not.. we have a very small group of juniors at the moment, but I think thay all passed 14...

Gtz.
Martijn

[ErikV]

Create them!, start with it!

Thanks for reply, maybe other clubs in the Netherlands.

When you use lower goals and teach them not to hit the hands but the ball, it is fun.

And they are learning fast. In germany they start early with canoepolo. And our neighbour (8km distance between our clubs)
WSV Witssee in Germany does it also and level of the 15 years is very high.

P.s. sorry for my bad english. I hated this on school

[michielv]

Well, as Erik and I discussed earlier in private mails: there are probably a lot of clubs in Holland that do have young kids that might want to play polo but there is no canoepolo in their club.

Like I proposed for the "grand slam of junior tournaments" the organisation should invite all Dutch clubs to send in a team.

We should have at least one complete set of gear available for teams that have no suitable gear of their own.

Even little groups of kids (<5 kids) should be able to enter the "tournament" and we'll mix them with other part-teams. Main target is: get them to play and have fun.

Erik: on http://www.nkb.nl/kanopolo/clubs.html there is a list of all known teams (including division). Have a look at "2e klasse" and "beginnende teams" for contacts.

Martijn: any chance Keistad could host a junior tournament? It doesn't have to a huge one, just 10 teams, 1 day, lots of fun and everybody gets a bag of candy afterwards ;-)

[Martijn]

Of course we can...

That's a deal.. is there a weekend before it's start freezing...??

As far as I'm concerned we can put down a date today, and I'll take care of the rest...

Just have to verify there are no other activities at the club..

Grtz.
martijn

[michielv]

Martijn, thanks!

I was actually thinking of a tournament in 2003 but if you feel like it you can always organise a day the weekend after Pylkwier?

That would mid-october.. Not yet freezing :-)

[ErikV]

Those arm kids isn't there a swimming in the Netherland where we can held a junior tournament.

Because the fun is less, when your fingers are frozen.

I rather wait for next year. With a good organised start, the result afterwards is much bigger.

[michielv]

There's a good point.

Suppose we organise a day for teams that already play polo (and know how to paddle, roll etc.). Cold weather is no fun for kids who do not paddle well but for instance the Natsec youth still paddles outside and will probably do so for a while.

Should we post this tournament on de nkb-polomail mailinglist?

[Martijn]

I think we're a bit of topic here...
And still writing English about a beginners tournament in The Netherlands...

Whatever...

I can understand that it's better when it's sunny and warm... and it's possible that most youth teams (and the parents) aren't too happy when they have to travel two weekends in a row.. especially when there aren't that many tournaments in the rest of the season...

I must say that I would rather not organise a tournament for the one level higher teams.... because it would be a tournament for a level we don't have in amersfoort....

So if it's gonna be a beginners tournament, it'll be for absolute beginners as well.....

Conclusion:

Best would probably be a tournament early in the next season...
That gives us some more time to take care of things and to spread the word, and the chance af some sun will be slightly larger...

Correct me if I'm wrong..

Doei,
Martijn

[Unregistered]

Hey, weet je

Wij hebben bij de gkv een kinder team. Van ongeveer 8 kleine kinderen die elke week serieus polotrainen. Willem en Niels zijn zo goed ze te trainen en ze zijn dolenthoesias (ofzo) Ze komen dit weekend naar pylkwier.

Paul

[Meridian]

Hi All,
There are some advantages talking in english it means I understood you, come to think of it that might not be such an advantage.
At Meridian we have over the last couple of years built up quite a substantial youth section and we have some very young players 9 and 10 years old and we have problems finding suitable opposition for them. their parents are not afraid of travelling and have talked about going to the Essen competion maybe they could also go to Holland I have already spoken to them and they are interested.
If its possible could you keep me up todate on how this develops sorry I don't speak anything other than english but I am keen to help with the development of our sport.
regards
Mark

[michielv]

Hi Mark,

What we're trying to do here is organise a couple of youth tournaments during bigger tournaments such as Essen, Mechelen, Goettingen etc.

I don't know if Essen has a suitable youth division but what we could do is organise a tournament (we planned to do so anyway) and if you (or at least the Meridian Youth) want to, please feel free to join us!

Perhaps we could arrange it that the Meridian youth could combine part of the trip with those of you who will go to Essen.

As it is, we plan to organise a number of small scale, low budget tournaments. However, depending on the amount of interest etc. we might do this bigger scale tournament as well. Some people who will be organising this thing also have contacts in Belgium.

Use of equipment could be arranged, although most likely this will be something along the lines of PE Eskimo Gecko's or a similar type of boat.

Cheers,

Michiel

[Meridian]

Ok transport of our own equipment is not a problem as the parents of the children are highly supportive. All of our children currently use Mega Evoloutions which they would probably bring with them.
From my experience of working with the kids here in the uk nothing needs to be expensive if anything keeping it simple works well.
One thing you may want to think about though is catering during the day children have a nasty habit at least in the uk of turning up at competion with no real food or drink to last them the duration of the event.
At the friendly competions we have ran we normally have a break for lunch with a barbecue or opne of the clubs parents dives off to the local takeaway restraunt and gets a basick meal for everyone usually if you talk to the restraunt they will do a deal if you say its for a junior event.
just some thoughts
regards
Mark

[michielv]

Well, with boats like the Evolution the Meridian Youth is likely to win *grin*

The whole thing is supposed to be as simple as possible with low overhead costs. The idea of organising a form of healthy catering is very good. There are several tournaments here (most notable Odysseus from Alkmaar) that have a joined supper which is good value for money.

Do you have any ideas on length of the tournament? Because Essen lasts for 3 days which is probably a bit much for young kids. But I can also imagine very much that most parents are not that happy with travelling all the way to Holland/Continent for one single day of polo.

Michiel

[Meridian]

I would suggest either A Saturday only competion for all the teams and then maybe our kids could do some training sessions with the local juniors or maybe a 2 day tournament.

[Meridian]

I'd like to apoligise if it seems I have gate crashed your discussion but I feel we can work together and we have the potential to end up with something really quite good for us all.

I would suggest three possibilities
1.Saturday only competion for all the teams and then maybe our kids could do some training sessions with the local juniors
2. maybe a 2 day tournament where all the teams attend.
3. two seperate competions giving the teams the option of attending both on the two days of the weekend

I don't know the geography of the netherlands that well but I know from talking with the English parents there main complaint about the National Youth League is they have to travel a long way for only a few games and for a few hours stay and they often make a weekend of the journey instead.

The parents that I have spoken to have asked if the canoe clubs have any ground nearby wherby they could maybe camp or if they would need to book cheap hotels in the surrounding area sorry (they have got more carried away all ready than I have)

Have you considered multiple age groups? just a thought we sometime run competions with two age groups of kids it just helps to get more clubs involved if you can afford to be a little flexible.

I think the most important thing for the juniors is that its fun and sociable

[Martijn]

I think the two days are a great idea..
Just have a all weekend competiton, and let everyone choose to stay all weekend or just one of the two days. Maybe a little more work to make a nice schedule.. but very nice for new teams !

[michielv]

Hi Mark,

Please feel free to crash into any discussions, especially if it's still within the topic.

As it is junior polo was really microscopic in Holland for the past few years and due to a couple of people who worked very hard at getting more people to play we've got a couple of junior teams now. I'm not sure about the exact amount but I'd say there are about 8 or 10 youth teams (10-16 y.o.).

In order to keep those youngsters playing polo we plan to organise a series of tournaments where we try to keep things local so parents do not have to travel for hours for two games. Mostly tournaments are 2-day events but at this moment we are considering 1-day events as most parents like to be able to go home in the evening.

However, we could organise two one-day tournaments or a two day event or a one-day plus a training day event or whatever combination people would like to attend.

Most clubs have camping facilities so if you would like to stay this is most likely possible.

Aim of the whole thing is to get more kids to play polo and improve the skills of those who already do by providing them with more opportunities to play.

What might be a good idea is to organise a junior tournament and a training session simultaneously so we could for instance start with a training session in the morning, have a few games, have a lunchbreak, have some training again and finish the day with a couple of games again. That way we can get kids who have hardly any polo experience to participate as well?

Just a thought...

BTW: most people around here are very enthousiastic about the idea of having visiting youth teams at the junior tournaments. Perhaps we'll turn this into a Junior Sloterplas ;-)

[Meridian]

Sorry guys I am a little confused initially I thought you were talking about a potential series of tournaments but now I am thinking you are talking about only 1 either way we will do our best to support you. We had our main junior session lastnight and the parents were full of questions such as when will the age cut off be, personally I quite like 01 January but thats less important. I asked all of our clubs parents if they would be interested and got a resounding yes from them all. I think we could realisticly send 3 teams if it was a one off but if it was to be a series of competion then I would probably only try to send 2 teams to each. At the moment it seems each month we gain 1 or 2 new people and they just don't leave. which I suppose is a good thing. Will you be looking to impose a minimum age as even the parent of our youngest are keen to come I thing they look forward to the social side as much as the polo.
That the one thing we are trying to build within the current group of parents a strong social atmosphere because if the enjoy themselves then they will support just about anything.
By the way the seniors in the club think it would be nice if meridian returned to Sloterplas we miss our Annual trip to Amsterdam and what ever happened to the Zandam competion that was good as well getting sunburnt on the barge, sorry drifted of track briefly.

[michielv]

Hi Mark,

Woops, I guess I've been a bit unclear. We will have a series of junior tournaments (probably about 6 or 7 AFAIK) but I wasn't aware that you would like to come over to play _all_ tournaments.

So, we do plan to have more than one tournament, preferebly simultaneuously with the big ones like Mechelen, Essen, Gottingen etc.

Unfortunately the people who organised Sloterplas (Martin and Juliette) had to stop their activities (for various reasons) and at the moment Sloterplas does not have a very active polo group. Same thing happened to Quo Vadis who did the tournament in Zaandam :-(

AFAIK Keistad (Martijn, our moderator plays with them) is thinking about a similar tournament so chances are that in the future there will be another big Dutch tournament for you to visit!

[Meridian]

they are very keen I had origonally guessed that you would be running 3 or 4 from the mail but 6 or 7 should qualify the team for a frequent traveller pass

[michielv]

I remember one poloplayer from the UK (Nidge/Nigel) having a team mate who does organise travel arrangements for a hobby. Perhaps he can help you get more discount. I'll check the big mailbox at home tonight for an e-mail address.

One thing is for sure: you're bound to see a lot of Holland ;-)

[Meridian]

Thanks for your help I remember the email as well I also no the player so we will speak to him do you know what the likely dates are I may ask for one piece of small favour would you have any objection if during the course of the year we played more than 10 players in the teams we send out I realise this is a strange request but it would give me alot more freedom and would increase the chance of us being able to send out a team to all your tournaments.
I realise this is youth and therefore we are most interested in development but I just want to be sure you wouldn't have a problem with this.
when do you think the league will start?
thanks
Mark

[michielv]

*grin* Wow, that took me a couple of times to figure out the punctuation myself *LOL*

No problems with more than 10 players, as long as you've got the correct amount of players on the field it's fine with me. Chances are that some teams might lose a player during the season so perhaps we'll ask (spare) players frm other teams whether they would like to join those teams as well. We are not going to be extremely strict about this sort of thing, as long as everybody is happy and the kids get to play polo.

I just remembered his name: Nigel Murray, I think he plays with Bedford Raiders. His daughter was on the GB U21 Women squad in EC Poland (I think).

We haven't set any dates yet but if you check the 2003 calendar you can figure out some yourself. The dates will probably during Charleroi, Gottingen, Mechelen, Hemelvaart (not sure what this holiday is called in English) and later on during the season (August? September?).

So the first tournament will be early May.

Do you think it would be wise to have a dat during Essen as well?

Cheers,

Michiel

[Meridian]

re clashing with Essen, I think that this would have little affect on us as I think the three day essen competion is a problem for our juniors because it is not a bank holiday in England and is also in the juniors exam time so the parents are obviously reluctant for the juniors to miss a school day at this time of year

Its good to see we are on very similar wave lengths regarding our attitude towards Junior polo. That Fun is most important and if they are having fun they will come again and if they come again they get better

[michielv]

It is a bank holiday in Holland but most paddling clubs have lots of activities so chances are a lot of juniors won't be able to make it anyway.

I've heard about German and Belgian teams being interested as well so this might turn out to be a great league :-)