At the County Coaches’ meeting on 8 May 2012 the following arrangements were agreed for the year 2012/13. Ian Bird as Head Coach and all the other county coaches will continue.
Owing to the low attendance by Juniors at this year’s county squad sessions with only two out of twelve attending the final session it was accepted that the educational, work and other pressures of those over fifteen should be recognised.
For 2012/13 the obligation to attend county squad sessions will apply to Cadets only and Juniors, provided they are still showing commitment to table tennis, will be selected, on merit, for the county teams even though they are not in the County Squad.
Although the county coaching will be primarily aimed at the Cadets in future Juniors exempted can still apply to be included if they feel this would improve their performance in the county team.
The coaching sessions will be shortened to 3 hours from 10am to 1pm and will be on five Sunday mornings between November and March.
Selection for the County Top 10 Invitation Tournament will take place as before and will inform county team and squad selection as it does now. Appearance in the Top 10 Invitation Tournament by Juniors will not mean that attendance at county squad sessions is required. These are two separate things.
Also exempted from the need to attend the county squad will be those regularly attending higher level squads such as the High Performance Squad. This again will not affect county team selection.
The Boys Cadet Top 10 Invitation this year will be on Sunday morning 9 September and it is intended to increase this to a Top 20 event. This will not only help to inform us about squad and team selection but also give us a clearer picture of the current pecking order of the best up and coming young players in the county.
The Boys and Girls Junior Top 10s will take place on Sunday 30 September and again it is intended to increase the Boys event to a Top 20. This will include a number of Cadets whose rankings are high enough to be included plus some of the other highest placed Cadets from the Top 20 Cadet event on 9 September. With the girls we have some promising Cadets coming through and we will increase the number of girls taking part as necessary, perhaps to a Top 12 event.
As a result of the strength in depth coming through we are, for the first time, able to field a second Cadet team in the coming season. The Team Captain of the Cadet Second Team will be Jordan Wood and the Team Captains of the other teams will be as before: Junior Firsts Kevin Bird, Junior Seconds Richard Bashford and Cadet Firsts Gary Webb.
