memory lane

[topbanana]

I've just been reading this months bass/sea angler and there was an interesting write up in the back on juniors joining clubs. The club in the write up was western super mare saa. Its goes on to say how much the club and its members help juniors, giving them lifts, advise on terminal gear, rigs etc and even supplied bait to those who needed it ! Brilliant I say.

I remember when I was a junior and was quite a successful one at that but the club I fished in then was nothing like that ! As I said I was successful and would often outfish the seniors including one guy who gave me a lift which I gave him petrol money for and I used to buy crab off him in the summer. It all stopped though because I won my fair share of matches and no one else would help me with a lift for the same reason ! So I left the club and I fished in a few others as well while I was a junior and found the other anglers just the same as my previous club.

I think what they do in the club mentioned is brilliant and a breath of fresh air for young anglers and is something other clubs wanna take note of.

[Bassboyo]

Totally agree , youngsters need that encouragement

[dabcatcher]

i totally agree.

but.... the legal minefield [child protection, risk assessment] that goes with having juniors in a club means that, unless you have a number of junior members and a team [with the correct checks] dedicated to running a junior section, thats runs seperately to your senior matches and on fixed venues. its just not viable for most clubs.

i am chairman of hartlepool pirates and would love to have a junior section. we know that theres loads of interested kids out there.

but unless we go down the correct legal rout we will be in a lot of trouble.

the days of allowing a child to register in a comp and wander off into the darkness on there own or with some scruffy looking bloke they know nothing about have long gone...